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DISSERTATION 



ON THE 



SCIENCE OF METHOD; 



OR, 



THE LAWS AND REGULATIVE PRINCIPLES 



OP 



EDUCATION 



Br 

SAMUEL TAYLOK COLEEIDGE. 



EIGHTH EDITION, 




LONDON: 



CHARLES GRIFFIN AND COMPANY, 

STATIONERS' HALL COURT. 






M>NDON : PRINTED BV W CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STUEE C. 



SYNOPSIS, 

SECTION 1. 

OxV THE PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD. 

Page 

From disregard of the Principles of Method no Encyclopaedia has ever yet been 

methodically arranged - - - - - - - - - -13 

It is fit to commence the present work by an explanation of the Principles, and 
au application of them to the chain of the Arts and Sciences - - - 14 

This work :laimsto be a Methodical Compendimn of human knowledge- - 14 

The word Method, derived from the Greek, signifies a way of transit. Method 
implies Imity with progression. Method must be an act of the Mind itself, 
which alone unites or makes many one. An universal Method must be 
sought in the very centre of the Human Intellect. Method is never arbitraiy 14 

Relations of things are the materials of Method, which is the way of transit from 
one to the other of related things --------15 

Relation of Law is that whereby we understand that a thing must he ; Relation 
of Theory that whereby we perceive that it is - - - - - 15 

Relations of Law belong to the Pure Sciences, which deal with necessary truths, 
predetermined by the Mind itself, and ever existing in and for the Mind alone ; 
and in a looser sense, to the Mixed Sciences, in which truths originating in the 
Mind are applied to the world without, and constitute the great Laws ot 
Nature - - - - - - - - - - - -16 

Relations of Theory are subsei^vient to the Scientific Arts, such as Medicine. 
Chemistry, Physiology - - - - - - - - - -16 

The Method of the Fine Arts lies between Law and Theory. In it Laws of 
Taste predominate, but it contains other Laws dependent on external objects 1 6 

Tinkling verse and the Harmonica are alike unsatisfactory, because in them the 
material encroaches on the mental, a proof how truly the Fine Arts involve 
Laws of the Mind and Relations of Law - - - - - - -16 

^'ethod implies a uniting and a progressive power. Law and Idea are coiTela- 
tive terms ; the one (Law) is the laying down of the rule or mode of union, 
the mental act ; the other (Idea) is the rule laid down, the mental object. 
Thus Idea and Law differ as Being and Truth ; the mind objective and sub- 
jective, L e., considered as self-beheld and beholding, the subject being that 
which, in all workings and movements, of which we are conscious, is iiv- 
ferred, as the agent, quod jacet subter, which lies under what appears : the 
obiect that in us, whence the subject is infen'ed, id qiuxl jacet oh oculos - 17 

B 2 



IV SYNOPSIS. 

Page 
The Idea may exist in a distinct form, or as an unconscious impulse - - 17 

Language is well adapted to lead from the vague sense to the clear beholding 
of the Idea 17 

The Progi-ession in Ideas, which is true Method, starts from a rightly chosen 
Initiative ------------18 

The habit of Method results from a certain education. Objects of sense stimu- 
late the mind, which again acts on the food received from without - - 18 

Excess in methodizing is opposed to the accumiJation of fresh material of 
thought 19 

According to the true Laws of Method, ideas of Reason and Faith must be held 
paramount, those of Physical Experience subordinate. This subordination is 
independent of immediate practical utility, which is determined by circum- 
stances of the moment - - - - - - - - -19 

Ideas have a certain relative rank among themselves - - - - - 20 

Metaphysical Ideas relate to the essence of things as possible, and are inde- 
pendent of actual existence ; these are of the highest class. Physical Ideas 
concern the nature of things actually existing ------ 20 

The word Nature signifies either the reality of a thing as existent, or the sum 
of sensuous things ; a physical Idea, or a sensible Impression - - - 21 

Mere arrangement is not Method - - - - - - - -21 

Summary ------------21 

Method is founded on Relations. There are relations of Law and of Theory. 
The Method of the Fine Arts comprises both. The Principles of Method are 
Union and Progression. Progress requires in the Mind a due mean between 
passiveness under outward impression and activity of abstract reflection - 21 



SECTION II. 

ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRECEDING PRINCIPLES. 

The Principles already stated are to be tested by particular references - - 23 

Method is important generally, not in processes of intellect alone, but equally 
so in the ordering of active and domestic life ------ 23 

The truly methodical man gives a life to Time, distinguishing its parts, which 
would otherwise glide on massed together like a stream ; realizing its ideal 
dimensions, giving individuality to its moments ----- 24 

Method in discourse is the sign of mental power and cultivated intellect - - 24 

There must be Method in the performance of Moral Duty - - - - 25 

Method in speculative meditation is conducive to worldly interest in the pro- 
motion and regulation of useful discovery - , - - « - 25 



SYNOPSIS. V 

Page 
Columbus was led to success by a guiding Idea ------ 25 

In the strength of this Idea he conquered at last, though his noble hope was 
long contemned, both by Princes and the common People - - - - 26 

An Initiative, or previous mental act, is indispensable in physical, as well as in 
mathematical studies - - - - - - - - - -26 

In Mathematics the perfect Idea makes the object ; the definition precedes the 
reasoning : in Physics the definition is representative not constitutive, and 
follows the reasoning ----------27 

Discoveries of Experimental Philosophy, till they lead to some Law, are in- 
secure and unproductive - - - - - - - - -27 

The Idea of the Theory of Electricity is one and sure amid various and inse- 
cure hypotheses. On this depends the method of arranging the phaenomena. 

The Law of Polarity operates in all Electrical phaenomena - - - - 28 

Magnetism is contrasted with Electricity in furnishing no Idea, leading to no 
Law, and hence to no Method. There is an hypothesis which considers 
Magnetism, Electricity, and Galvanism, as results of one power essential to 
all material construction - - - - - - - - -28 

The Fictions of the Electrician contain an idea ; the Suppositions of the Magnet- 
ists do but repeat the same fact in a magnified form. This leads us to recog- 
nise the importance of the enlightening fact, which proclaims an Idea. One 
fact is often as good as a thousand -------30 

Zoology was without unity or system till Hunter, in the preparations for his 
Museum, announced, though imperfectly, an Idea, and thereby led to noble 
results ------------31 

An Idea is wanted indispensably for methodical arrangement in Botany - - 31 

Botany is obliged to Linnaeus for a serviceable scheme of arrangement. But for 
lack of an Initiative Idea, the true Idea of Sex and of Vegetation itself, he 
was unable to systematize the Vegetable with the Animal and Mineral 
Kingdoms ------------32 

Want of insight into the Idea of Sex precludes a perfect methodical arrange- 
ment of vegetable productions. With all the multitude and variety of 
particular informations on the subject, brought together by numerous able 
investigators. Botany remains merely a vast nomenclature and catalogue, from 
default of a methodizing Idea --------33 

The Idea which has occurred to some, that the harmony between the Vegetable 
and Animal Worlds rests upon contrast, not likeness, if proved an objective 
truth, would produce scientific Method -------33 

The charm of Chemistry consists in the anticipation of a Law, whereof the 
variety of substances, assumed to be indecomposable, are exponents. It is a 
pursuit after unity of principle through variety of forms - - - - 34 

There is a con*espondence between Physical Science and Poetry, Nature being 
idealized by the Poet, Poetry substantiated by the Natural Philosopher - 35 



VI SYNOPSIS. 

Page 
The position that Poetry is capable of Method is founded on the very Philo- 
sophy here set forth, and is evidenced in the Plays of Shakspeare - - 35 

Shakspeare's information has been shown to be extensive. But his knowledge 
was no rude mass, it was methodized by a perception of Relations. He 
studied Mankind in the Idea of the Race, and followed out that Idea into its 
varieties by a guiding Method ------__ 35 

Compare Mrs. Quickly's account of FalstafPs debt, with Hamlet's narration to 
Horatio of what took place in his voyage to England - - - - 36 

Both discourses are immethodical in form ; but that of the hostess wants order 
resulting from power of thought, while that of Hamlet is governed by reflec- 
tion. The former is a mere report of passive impressions ; the latter is in- 
terrupted by the propensity to generalize -___-. 38 

Mrs. Quickly's want of method is common in real life ; and, on the other hand, 
many intelligent men, from the disposition to generalize in excess, are apt to 
overlook the relation of objects to the apprehension and sympathies of 
hearers - - - -.- - - - - - - -38 

The habit of Method brings the Remote into Contiguity ; the absence of it pro- 
duces distance and disconnection between the parts of a discourse treating of 
things near in Time and Space - - - - - - - -39 

Not only is there consistency in Shakspeare's Characters : his just display of 
Passion arose from the contemplation of Ideas. It was not in the former only 
that he followed an accurate philosophic Method - - - - - 39 

Condemnatory criticism on Shakspeare may, for the most part, receive two an- 
swers ; first that, working from an Idea, he better understood the fit mode of 
expressing Passion, — had a more methodical sense of Harmony, than his 
critics : secondly, that he pursued two Methods at once, the poetical and the 
psychological _______-. ,--40 

Shakspeare's moral conceptions are guided by philosophic Method. He exhibits 
crime in union with intellectual vigour, never, like less methodic moralists, 
conjoined with magnanimity, or as part of a character upon the whole 
amiable and admirable - - - - - - - - - -41 

Shakspeare is methodical in his style. No other man ever so exquisitely 
adapted the discourse of poetic personages to wide varieties of rank and cha- 
racter. It was Method that led him to the choice of such happy words and 
idioms, still fresh as in their first bloom - - - - - - -41 

Shakspeare has been called " not methodical in the structure of his Fable ;" but 
the contrary may be proved. He has been said to have violated the unities 
of time, place, and action. But Unity is the subject of Ideal Law, and this 
is Shakspeare's own peculiar ground, the ground of Idea. Who could alter 
the plan of one of his great plays, or transpose its parts, without destroying 
the sublime and moving effect of scenes and passages ? - - - - 42 

If the wondrous excellence of Shakspeare, in all provinces of the poetic drama, 
was thus attributable to Method, let it never be said that Poetry is inde- 
pendent of philosophical principles of Method ------ 43 



SYNOPSIS. vii 

Page 
Philosophy, to which belongs the education of Mind, is herself wholly conver- 
sant with Method -----.-___ 44 

The Ancients had their spurious intellectual Methods. But their Philosophers 
pursued a diflferent course from the Sophists. The species, Philosophy, is 
sufficiently exemplified by two varieties, Plato and Bacon - - - 44 

The object of the better works of Plato is to teach the art of Method. This is 
the clue to guide us through his labyrinth. His aim was not so much to 
teach any particular tnith, as to clear the way for the reception of Truth at 
large ; to excite in the soul those faculties, by the operation whereof it be- 
comes self-enriched, rather than to fill it with knowledge from without. 
Plato and Shakspeare dealt with ideas, but were only so much the more 
awake to actual existences. Plato's philosophy was most wrongfully accused 
of neglecting fact and experience ; he pursued the false intellectualism of the 
Sophists, even oftener and more vehemently than the usurpation of the 
Senses --..-----__. 45 

Lord Bacon, though he is strangely cited as authority against Plato, followed the 
Platonic method in his own scheme ---__«_ 45 

Cicero, the great Philosopher of Eome, venerated Plato. Bacon's detraction 
from him is easier to explain than to justify. He was influenced by the Fathers 
of the Reformation and by misinterpreters - - - - - -46 

Bacon was invidious also to his contemporaries. But we are here concerned 
with his philosophical principles only - - - - - -«47 

The superficial talkers about Bacon's Philosophy form a wrong and inadequate 
estimate of it, from considering only those parts the soundness of which may 
be fairly disputed _-_.---___ 47 

Bacon collected Particulars in order to concentrate them into Universals ; but 
by these means it would have been impossible to have arrived at Law, the 
sole object of bringing them together -------48 

Bacon performed a worthier task by constructing a methodical system de- 
veloped in his Novum Organum. If we extract from Plato and from Bacon 
what constitutes the true philosophy of each writer, we shall find it identical 
in regard to the Science of Method ; although in both authors, from imper- 
fect acquaintance with the laws of nature, the inductions are often erroneous 
and the proposed applications impracticable ------ 4<^ 

Bacon, as much as we, demands the mental initiative, — namely, as the motive 
and guide of philosophical experiment, some well-grounded purpose, some 
distinct impression of the probable results. With him, as with us, an Idea 
is an experiment proposed ; an experiment is an Idea realized - - - 49 

What forms the purpose and adapts thereto the experiment ? The under- 
standing of the experimenter — lux Intellectus. This light, he argues, is ob- 
scured by idols or false opinions. He distinguishes the various kinds of idols, 
and, like Plato, prescribes remedies for the blindness they produce : he shows 
that Idols are empty notions, whilst Ideas are the very impresses of Nature, 
corresponding perfectly to the outward things to which they belong. Bacon's 
style betrays in some respects a faulty Method - - - - - 50 



VUl SYNOPSIS. 

Page 
Bacon teaches that there are innate idols or mental fallacies ; that as the mind 

in every individual is more or less enfeebled and impaired, it misrepresents, 

like an imperfect miiTor, what is presented to it ; that consequently man is 

led to take the mechanism of his own reflective faculty for the measure of 

Nature and of Deity. According to Plato, as well as to Bacon, so long as 

forms merely subjective are taken for the moulds of objective truth, no 

fruitful and secure method can be expected ------ 5C 

Bacon suggests that the imperfection of the human Intellect may and must be 
remedied by a higher power. He assumes that the evidence of the Judgment, 
^eset with Idols, may be corrected by the Judgment, enlightened by Ideas. 
This corrector and purifier is one and the same light of truth, the condition 
ot all pure science. Hence Plato calls Ideas living Laws : Bacon names the 
Laws of Nature Ideas. What Plato extolled under the title of Dialectic, is 
the discipline whereby the human mind is cleansed from Idols, and raised to 
the contemplation of Ideas, or distinguishable powers self-affirmed - - 52 

Plato treated principally of Truth as manifested in the world of Intellect ; Bacon 
of the same Truth in the world of Sense. The one cultivated Metaphysics 
most ; the other Natural Philosophy. Botn proceeded on the same prin- 
ciples of Unity and Progression, and alike followed Method as here de- 
scribed ------------52 

That the Method treated of is founded in the laws and necessary conditions of 
human existence, may be inferred from the History of the Human Race, which 
has its Infancy, Youth, Manhood, and Middle Age ----- 54 

In the first period the Obedience of the Will was taught to Man. Some in that 
Early Age cultivated the Moral Sense, gained spiritual knowledge and spiritual 
hopes, and therefore cared little to acquire Arts and Sciences and improve 
earthly possessions. The latter exclusively observed outward things as the 
sole realities. The vicious of Mankind receded from cultivation, while they 
hui'ried toward civilization. They worshipped the material elements, and 
finally bowed down before material Idols. Here were two opposite Methods ; 
that of looking for the good and the true within the mind, and that of finding 
it only in the material -- - - - - - - - -54 

In the second period Providence awakened Man to the pursuit of an idealized 
Method in the development of his faculties. Bards began to spiritualize 
Polytheism. Hence the Mysteries shaped themselves into Epic Poetry and 
History on one hand, — on the other into Tragedy and Philosophy. The Fine 
Arts shot up at once to perfection by a Method founded on a Mental Initia- 
tive. The progress of the Ancients in all things that originate in Mind was 
contrasted with their slow advance in Natural History and Philosophy - 55 

The Romans were mere imitators of the Greeks in Science and Art. The Dark 
Ages, which brought the sensual Barbarians from the North to meet the 
influences of Christianity in the South, require no long consideration. But 
one effect of that influence must be noticed, namely, the gi-adual abolition of 
domestic slavery. The Idea of a Human Being, as a Person, in opposition 
to a Thing, excludes the Idea of property in that Being - - - - 56 



SYNOPSIS. IX 

Page 

The Leaders of the Reformation were advocates of the Ideal and Internal 
against the External or Imaginative. The Revolution of Thought and its 
effects on the Science of Method became visible beyond the pale of the Church 
or the Cloister. Bacon's attempt to introduce a new method into Learning 
was completely successful - - - - - - - - -57 

A complete and genuine Philosophy can only exist when one and the same Ideal 
Method is applied to external nature and to intellectual existence. The work 
of Bacon, in its general scope, contemplates physical Ideas. This fact, 
together with some of his expressions, misled many of his followers into the 
belief that he hel-i the things of sense to be the only worthy objects of Man's 
attention. Hence the modern French school of Philosophy and the monstrous 
puerilities of Condillac and Condorcet, whose pupils are important only by 
their number _------•«-- 57 



SECTION III. 

APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF METHOD TO THE GENERAL 
CONCATENATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF STUDIES. 

A savage Indian, unacquainted with letters, attempting to make use of the 
Bible, in the sense that his fate is in some way connected with its contents, 
may represent Arrangement guided by no Idea, Orderliness without Method - 59 

When the Missionary, arriving, explains to him the nature of written words, he 
communes with the spirit of the volume. Thenceforth his vain Arrangement 
is discarded ; the results of Method are to him light and truth - - - 60 

The attempt to bind together the whole body of the Sciences has been, in some 
instances, worse than immethodical. The insinuation of sceptical principles 
into works of Science is full of danger to posterity - - - - ' Q^ 

The Encyclopaedia Metropolitana has been projected to keep up an interest in 
the Drinciples of Method - - - - - - - - -61 

An Universal Dictionary of Knowledge is not undertaken in this work, but to 
build, by a philosophical Method, the Useful on the Essential in Science, — the 
Elegant and Agreeable on both - - - -- - - -61 

This Method consists in subordinating particxJar things to a preconceived Idea, 
or to some lower form of the latter ------ -61 

The Moral Origin and Tendency of true Science is the master thought of the 
plan 61 

The Pure Sciences are built on the Relations of Ideas to each other ; the Mixed 
or Applied on the Relations of Ideas to the External World - - - 62 

The Pure Sciences represent pure Acts of Mind ------ 62 

In them we distinguish between Formal and Real. The former teach the 
Forms of Thinking ; the latter treat of Being itself, the true nature and exist- 
ence of the External Universe, of the Guiding Principles within us, and of 
the Great Cause of all - - - - - • - - - - 62 



X SYNOPSIS. 

Pai'6 
The Formal Sciences are Grammar, Logic, Mathematics ; the Sciences that 

deal with substantial realities are Metaphysics, Morals, Theology. These 

Sciences are conversant about relations of Law, therefore have all the purity 

and certainty of the positive and absolute. In the proper philosophical 

Method the speculative knowledge of Metaphysics is united with the reality 

of ethical sentiments, and both are consummated in Theology - - - 62 

The INIixed and Applied Sciences, as they concern our relations to the external 
world, not pure acts of mind alone, depart from Law to embrace Theory, and 
thus require a Method adapted to themselves ------ 64 

Physical Theories, the materials of which they are constructed being supplied 
from without, continually change form, and are imperfect because necessarily 
progressive. The Initiative in such cases is supplied by an Hypothesis, an 
actual fact represented as universally present, or a fact imagined, being 
placed, as it were, centrally, to the support of other facts arranged by the 
theory into a certain form ---------65 

True Theory is always a locum tenens of Law. A Law occupying the centre, 
the circumference may be extended without derangement of the entire scheme, 
or alteration of its character --------65 

This will show the connexion of the Mixed and Applied with the Pure Sciences, 
and the reference of the former to the Human Mind. The terms Science and 
Law, however, are used in a less strict sense in reference to the Mixed and 
Applied Sciences than to the Pure, since they cannot have the absolute cer- 
tainty of the others. The former might best be entitled Studies - - ^Q 

The Mixed Studies or Sciences are those in which certain Ideas of the Mind are 
applied to the general properties of bodies, as Mechanics, Hydrostatics, 
Optics, and Astronomy- - - - - - - - - -67 

The Applied Sciences are those in which Ideas or Images that represent them 
are applied, not to the investigation of the general and permanent properties 
of all bodies, but of certain changes in those properties, or of properties 
existing in bodies partially. Such are Magnetism, Electricity, Galvanism, the 
laws of Light and Heat, &c. The uncertainty of the first principles in these 
Studies has already been shown --------68 

The Fine Arts are Sciences applied to the purposes of Pleasure through the 
Imagination. They are Poetry, Painting, Music, Sculpture, Architecture. In 
these the Mental Initiative must proceed from within ; in the Mixed and in 
the first class of Applied Sciences it may have been received from without. 
The Method to be observed in them, as before stated, lies between that ot 
Law and that of Theory. As operating by sensible impressions, they belong 
to the outward world ; and yet the true Poet is impelled by an inward 
power, an impulse, which gradually brightens into an Idea - - - 68 

Useful Pursuits — Political Economy, Agriculture, Commerce, Manufac- 
tures — are reducible to Method, and refer to Ideas, being dependent on the 
Sciences already named - - - - - - - - -69 

The failure of Linnaeus in fixing the three great kingdoms of Natural History on 
a firm basis is owing to the want of precision in the first Ideas of his Theory 70 



SYNOPSIS. xi 

Page 
Natural History is a rule for the dependent pursuits, such as Medicine, Surgery, 

and Anatomy. The desire to improve these should be regulated by a due 

regard to the place each holds in the circle of the Sciences, and by observino- 

the only proper method that can be pursued in its cultivation - - - 70 

The plan of this Encyclopaedia embraces the History of the Human Race. The 
great end of History is to acquaint us with the History of Man, and this end is 
best answered by giving the most exact portrait. But there must be some 
mode of grouping and connecting the Individuals, who are themselves the 
great landmarks in the map of Human Nature. Accordingly Histoiy will 
sometimes be presented in the form of Biography. The Uses of History will 
be treated in an Introduction, and there will be inter-connecting Chapters on 
the events of distinguishing periods, as well as on Political Geography and 
Chronology _--__---->_ 70 

These views relate the Philosophical and Historical branches of the Work. 
Of the Miscellaneous and Alphabetical it is not necessary to make any detailed 
statement ------------72 

To the Philosophical, as most important, every other part of the arrangement is 
suboi'dinated. The Philosophical governs and regulates the Alphabetical - 73 

Trade and Literature, the one of which has for its object the wants of the body, 
the other the wants of the mind, are the two great impulses of Modern times. 
Without these combined there can be no Nation ; without Commerce and 
Science no bond of Nations. Our Method embraces this two-fold distinction 
of human activity .----.-..-74 

This conducts us to the distinguishing object of the present undertaking, in ex- 
plaining which we have dwelt on Method, the main characteristic of every just 
an-angement of Knowledge. To convey methodically the pure and unsophisticated 
knowledge of the Past, so as to aid the progress of the Future, has been already 
announced as the dlstingnishing claim of the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. 



SECTION I. 



ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL PRINCIPLES OF METHOD. 

The word Encyclopaedia is too familiar to Modem Literature Nature of 
to require, in this place, any detailed explanation. It is current 
amongst us as the title of various Dictionaries of Science, whose 
professed object is to furnish a compendium of Human Know- 
ledge, whatever may be their plan. But to methodize such a 
compendium has either never been attempted, or the attempt 
has failed, from the total disregard of those general connecting 
principles, on which Method essentially depends. In presenting, 
therefore, to the Public an entirely new Work, intended to be 
Methodically arranged, we are not insensible to the difficulties 
of our undertaking ; but we trust that we have found a clue to 
the labyrinth in those considerations which we are now about 
to submit to the reader. 

As Method is thus avowed to be the principal aim and dis- The Ency- 
tinguishing feature of our publication, it becomes us at the Metropoli- 
commencement, clearly to explain in this Introduction what ^^;j^;^f 
we mean by that word ; to exhibit the Principles on which Compen- 

T>i •! • dium of 

alone a correct Philosophical Method can be founded ; to Human 
illustrate those principles by their apphcation to distinct studies ° 

and to the History of the Himian Mind ; and lastly to apply 
them to the general concatenation of the several Arts and 
Sciences, and to the most perspicuous, elegant, and useflil 
manner of developing each particular study. Such are the 
objects of this Essay, which we conceive must form a necessary 
Introduction to a Work, that is designated in its title from the 



14 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. I. 

place whence it originates, — Encyclopedia Metropolitana ; 
but claims from its mode of execution to be also called " a 
Methodical Compendium of Human Knowledge^ 

The word Tlie word Method (fxidodoo) being of Grecian origin, first 
formed and applied by tliat acute, ingenious, and accurate 
People, to the purposes of Scientific arrangement, it is in the 
Greek Language that we must seek for its primary and funda- 
mental signification. Now, in Greek, it literally means a way, 
or path, of transit. Hence the first idea of Method is a pro- 
gressive transition from one step in any course to another ; and 
where the word Method is applied with reference to many such 
transitions in continuity, it necessarily implies a Principle oi 
UNITY WITH progression. But that which unites, and makes 
many things one in the Mind of Man, must be an act of the 
Mind itself, a manifestation of intellect, and not a spontaneous 
and uncertain production of circumstances. This act of the 
Mind, then, this leading thought, this " key note " of the 
harmony, this " subtile, cementing, subterraneous " power, 
borrowing a phrase from the nomenclature of legislation, we 
may not inaptly call the INITIATIVE of all Method. It is mani- 
fest, that the wider the sphere of transition is, the more com- 
prehensive and commanding must be the initiative : and if we 
would discover an universal Method, by which every step in our 
progress through the whole circle of Art and Science should 
be directed, it is absolutely necessary that we should seek it in 
the very interior and central essence of the Human intellect. 

The Science To this point wc are led by mere reflection on the meaning 
of the word Method. We discover that it cannot, otherwise 
than by abuse, be applied to a dead and arbitrary arrangement, 
containing in itself no Principle of progression. We discover, 
that there is a Science of Method ; and that that Science, like 
all others, must necessarily have its Principles ; which it there- 
fore becomes our duty to consider, in so far at least as they 



SEC. I.] PRIXCIPLES OF THE SCIEXCE OF METHOD. 15" 

may be necessary to tlie arrangement of a Methodical Encyclo- 
paedia. 

AU things, in us, and about us, are a Chaos, without Method : Its Objects 
and so long as the mind is entirely passive, so long as there is Relations, 
an habitual submission of the Understanding to mere events 
and images, as such, without any attempt to classify and 
arrange them, so long the Chaos must continue. There may 
be transition, but there can never be progress ; there may be 
sensation^ but there cannot be thought : for the total absence of 
Method renders thinking impracticable ; as we find that partial 
defects of Method proportionably render thmking a trouble and 
a fatigue. But as soon as the mmd becomes accustomed to 
contemplate, not things only, but likewise relations of things, 
there is immediate need of some path or way of transit from 
one to the other of the things related ; — there must be some law 
of agreement or of contrast between them ; there must be some 
mode of comparison; in short, there must be Method. We 
may, therefore, assert that the relations of things form the 
prime objects, or, so to speak, the materials of 3Iethod ; and 
that the contemplation of those relations is the indispensable 
condition of thinking Methodically. 

Of these relations of things, we distinguish two principal 
kinds. One of them is the relation by which we understand 
that a thing must be : the other, that by which we merely per- 
ceive that it is. The one, we call the relation of Law, usmg 
tliat word in its highest and original sense, namely, that of 
laying down a rule to which the subjects of the Law must 
necessarily conform. The other, we call the relation of 
Theory. 

The relation of Law is in its absolute perfection conceivable Relation of 
only of Gi-OD, that Supreme Light, and Living Law, "in whom 
we live and move, and have our being ;" who is h Travn, and 7rp6 
7 u)v TrdvTiop. But yet the Human Mind is capable of viewing 



16 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. I. 

some relations of tilings as necessarily existent ; that is to say, 
as predetermined by a truth in the Mind itself, pregnant with 
the consequence of other truths in an indefinite progression. 
Of such truths, some continue always to exist in and for the 
Mind alone, forming the Pure Sciences, moral or intellectual ; 
whilst others, though originating in the Mind, constitute what 
are commonly called the great Laws of Nature, and form the 
groundwork of the Mixed Sciences, such as those of Mechanics 
and Astronomy. 

fteiation of The second relation is that of Theory, in which the existing 
forms and qualities of objects, discovered by observation, suggest 
a given arrangement of them to the Mind, not merely for the 
purposes of more easy remembrance and communication ; but 
for those of understanding, and sometimes of controlling them. 
The studies to which this class of relations is subservient, are 
more properly called Scientific Arts than Sciences. Medicine, 
Chemistry, and Physiology are examples of a Method founded 
on this second sort of relation, which, as well as the former, 
always supposes the necessary connection of cause and effect. 

Middle or The relations of Law and Theory have each their Methods. 

Method of Between these two, lies the Method of the Fine Arts, a 

Arts ^"^ Method in which certain great truths, composing what are 
usually called the Laws of Taste, necessarily predominate ; but 
in which there are also other Laws, dependent on the external 
objects of sight and sound, which these Arts embrace. To 
prove the comparative value and dignity of the first relation, it 
will be sufficient to observe that what is called " tinkling " 
verse is disagreeable to the accomplished Critic in Poetry, and 
that a fine Musical taste is soon dissatisfied with the Harmonica, 
or any similar instrument of glass or steel, because the body of 
the sound, (as the Italians phrase it,) or that effect which is 
derived from the materials, encroaches too far on the effect 
derived from the proportions of the notes, which proportions 



FEC. I.] PRINCIPLES OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 17 

are, in fact. Laws of tlie Mind, analogous to the Laws of 
Arithmetic and Greometry. 

We have stated, that Method implies both an uniting and a principle 
progressive power. Now the relations of tilings are not united ^ '^'^"* 
in Human conception at random — hiimano capiti — cervicem 
equinam ; but there is some rule, some mode of imion, more or 
less, strictly necessary. Where it is absolutely necessary, we 
have called it a relation of Law ; and as by Law we mean 
the la}'ing down the rule, so the rule laid down we call, in the 
ancient and proper sense of the word, an Idea ; and conse- Ideas, 
quently the words Idea and Law are correlative terms, differing 
only as object and subject, as Being and Truth. It is extremely 
necessary to advert to this use of the word Idea; since, in 
Modern Philosophy, almost any and every exercise of any and 
every mental faculty has been abusively called by this name, to 
the utter confusion and immethodizing of the wdiole Science of 
the Human Mind, and indeed of all other Knowledge what- 
soever. 

The Idea may exist in a clear, distinct, definite form, as that Definite or 

.-.-._. -p ^ .. . Instinctive 

01 a circle m the Mmd oi an accurate (ieometncian ; or it may 
be a mere instinct, a vague appetency towards something which 
the Mind incessantly hunts for, but cannot find, like a name 
which has escaped our recollection, or the impulse which fills 
the yoimg Poet's eye with tears, he knows not why. In the 
infancy of the Human Mind all our ideas are instincts ; and 
Language is happily contrived to lead us from the vague to the 
distinct, from the imperfect to the full and finished form : the 
boy knows that his hoop is round, and this, in after years, 
helps to teach him, that in a circle, all the lines drawn from 
the centre to the circumference are equal. It wiU be seen, in 
jhe sequel, that this distinction between the instinctive approach 
toward an Idea, and the Idea itself, is of high importance in 
Methodizing Art and Science. 



18 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. I. 

There is a From the first, or initiative Idea, as from a seed, successive 
progTrssion I^i^as germinate. Thus, from the Idea of a triangle, necessarily 
in Ideas. foUows that of equality between the sum of its three angles and 
two right angles. This is the Principle of an indefinite, not to 
say infinite. Progression ; but this progression, which is truly 
Method, requires not only the proper choice of an initiative, 
but also the following it out through all its ramifications. It 
requires, in short, a constant wakefuhiess of Mind ; so that if 
we wander but in a single instance from our path, we cannot 
reach the goal, but by retracing our steps to the point of diver- 
gency, and thence beginning our progress anew. Thus, a ship 
beating off and on an unknown coast, often takes, in nautical 
phrase, " a new departure ;" and thus it is necessary often to 
recur to that regulating process, which the French Language so 
happily expresses by the word s'orienter, i. e. to find out the , 
East for ourselves, and so to put to rights our faulty reck- 
oning. 
state of The habit of Method should always be present and effective ; 

adapted to but in Order to render it so, a certain training, or education of 
i etiKK . ^-j^^ Mind, is indispensably necessary. Events and images, the 
lively and spirit-stirring machinery of the external world, are 
like light, and air, and moisture, to the seed of the Mind, 
which would else rot and perish. In all processes of mental 
evolution the objects of the senses must stimulate the Mind ; 
and the Mind must in turn assimilate and digest the food which 
it thus receives from w^ithout. Method, therefore, must result 
from the due mean, or balance, between our passive impressions 
and the Mind's reaction on them. So in the healthful state of 
the Human body, waking and sleeping, rest and labour, reci- 
procally succeed each other, and mutually contribute to liveli- 
ness; and activity, and strength. There are certain stores 
proper, and, as it were, indigenous to the Mind, such as the 
Ideas of number and figure, and the logical forms and com- 



SEC. I.J PRINCIPLES OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 19 

binations of conception or thought. The Mind that is rich Excess in 
and exuberant in this intellectual wealth, is apt, like a miser, j^g opposed 
to dwell upon the vain contemplation of its riches, is disposed ^° the accu- 
to ffenerahze and methodize to excess, ever philosopliizinff, and of fresh 

^ . . ' . . ^. . .^' material of 

never descending to action ; — spreading its wmgs high in the thought. 
air above some beloved spot, but never flying far and wide over 
earth and sea, to seek food, or to enjoy the endless beauties of 
Kature ; the fresh morning and the warm noon, and the dewy 
eve. On the other hand, still less is to be expected, toward 
the Methodizing of Science, from the man who flutters about 
in blindness, like the bat ; or is carried liither and thither, like 
the turtle sleeping on the wave, and fancying, because he moves, 
that he is in progress. 

The patlis in which we may pursue a Methodical course are Proper 
manifold : at the head of each stands its pecuHar and guiding Method. 
Idea ; and those Ideas are as regularly subordinate in dignity, 
as the paths to which they point are various and eccentric in 
direction. The world has sufiered much, in modem times, 
from a subversion of the natural and necessary order of Science : 
from elevating the terrestrial, as it has been called, above the 
celestial ; and from summoning Eeason and Faith to the bar of 
that Hmited Physical experience, to which, by the true laws of 
Method, they owe no obedience. The subordination, of which 
we here speak, is not that which depends on immediate prac- 
tical utility : for the utility of Human powers, in their practical 
appHcation, depends on the circumstances of the moment ; and 
at one time strength is essential to our very existence, at 
another time skill : and even Cassar in a fever could cry. 

Give me some drink, Titinius, 
As a sick girl. 

In truth there is scarcely any one of the powers or faculties 
with which the Divine Goodness has endowed his creatures, 
which may not in its turn be a source of paramount benefit and 

C2 



20 LNTKODUCTION. [SEC. I. 

usefulness ; for every thing around us is full of blessings : nor 
is there any line of honest occupation in which we would dare 
to affirm, that by a proper exercise of the talent committed to 
his charge, an individual might not justly advance himself to 
highest praise. But we now allude to the subordination which 
necessarily arises among the different branches of Knowledge, 
according to the difference of those Ideas by which they are 
Gradation initiated and directed ; for there is a gradation of Ideas, as of 
ranks in a well-ordered State, or of commands in a well-regu- 
lated army ; and thus above all partial forms, there is one uni- 
versal form of GOOD and FAIR, the Ka\oKq.yaQov of the Platonic 
Philosophy. Hence the expressions of Lord Bacon, who in his 
great Work, the N'ovum Organum, speaks so much and so 
often of the lumen siccum, the pure light, which from a central 
focus, as it were, diffuses its rays all around, and forms a lucid 
sphere of Knowledge and of Truth. 
JMotaphy- We distinguish Ideas into those of essential property, and 
Physical those of natural existence ; in other words, into Metaphysical 
.deas. ^^^ Physical Ideas. Metaphysical Ideas, or those which relate 
to the essence of things as possible, are of the highest class. 
Thus, in accurate language, we say, the essence of a circle, not 
its nature ; because, in the conception of forms purely Geome- 
trical, there is no expression or implication of their actual 
existence : and our reasoning upon them is totally independent 
of the fact, whether any such forms ever existed in Nature, or 
not. Physical Ideas are those which we mean to express, when 
we speak of the nature of a thing actually existing and cogni- 
zable by our faculties, whether the thing be material or imma- 
terial, bodily or mental. Thus, the laws of memory, the laws 
of vision, the laws of vegetation, the laws of crystallisation, are 
all Physical Ideas, dependent for their accuracy, on tlie more 
or less careful observation of tilings actually existing. 

In speaking of the word Nature, however, wc must dis- 



eEC. I.] PRINCIPLES OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 21 

tinffuisli its two principal uses, viz. first, tliat to which we have Two uses of 
° r r ^ ^j^g ^Qj,^l 

adverted, and according to which it signifies whatever is Nature, 
requisite to the reality of a thing as existent, such as the 
nature of an aninial or a tree, distmguished from the animal or 
tree itself : and secondly, the sum total of things, as far as they 
are objects of our senses. In the first of these two meanings, 
the word Nature conveys a Physical Idea, in the other only a 
material or sensible Impression. 

Even natural substances, it is true, may be classed and Mere ar- 

-I p . . . rangement 

arranged for various purposes, m a certain order. Such mere is not 
arrangement, however, is not properly Methodical, but rather a 
preparation toward Method ; as the compilation of a Dictionary 
is a preparation for classical study. 

The limits of our present Essay will not allow us to do more Summary, 
than briefly to touch the chief topics of a general dissertation 
on Method ; but enough we trust has here been said, to render 
intelhgible the principles on which our Methodical Encyclo- 
paedia must be constructed. We have shown that a Method, 
which is at all comprehensive, must be founded on the relatimis 
of things : that those relations are of two sorts, according as 
they present themselves to the Human Mind as necessary, or 
merely as the result of observation. The former we have 
called relations of Law, the latter of Theory. Where the 
former alone are in question, the Method is one of necessary 
connection throughout; where the latter alone, though the 
connection be considered as one of cause and effect, yet the 
necessity is less obvious, and the connection itself less close. 
We have observed, that in the Fine Arts there is a sort of 
middle Method, inasmuch as the first and higher relations are 
necessary, the lower are only the results of observation. The 
great principles of all Method we have shown to be two, viz. 
Union and Progression. The relations of things cannot be 
united by accident : they are united by an Idea either definite 



22 INTRODUCTION^. [SEC. I. 

Union and or instinctive. Their union, in proportion as it is clear, is also 

Progression . r»Tifl-TT -i ^ tit 

are the progressive. Ine state oi Mmd adapted to such progress holds 
of^Method ^ ^^^ mean between a passiveness imder external impression, 
and an excessive activity of mere reflection ; and the progress 
itself follows the path of the Idea from wliich it sets out ; 
requiring, however, a constant wakefulness of Mind, to keep it 
within the due limits of its course. Hence the orbits of Thought, 
so to speak, must differ among themselves as the initiative 
Ideas differ ; and of these latter, the great distinctions are into 
Physical and Metaphysical. Such, briefly, are the views by 
which we have been guided, in our present attempt to Methodize 
the great mass of Human Knowledge. 



( 28 ) 



SECTION II. 



ILLUSTRATION OF THE PRECEDING PRINCIPLES . 

The Principles wKicli have been exliibited in the preceding Test of the 
Section, and in respect to which we claim no other merit, tiie princi- 
than that of having drawn them from the purest sources of ^^^f' ^ ^^^ -^ 
Philosophy, ancient and modem, are, we trust, sufficiently 
plain and intelligible in themselves ; but as the most satisfactory 
mode of proving their accuracy, we proceed to illustrate them 
by a consideration of some particular studies, pursuits, and 
opinions; and by a reference to the general History of the 
Human Mind. 

And first, as to the general importance of Method ; — what General 
need have we to dilate on this fertile topic ? For it is not of jiethod*^ 
solely in the formation of the Human Understanding, and in 
the constructions of Science and Literature, that the employ- 
ment of Method is indispensably necessary ; but its importance 
is equally felt, and equally acknowledged, in the whole business 
and economy of active and domestic life. From the cottager's in the 
hearth or the workshop of the artisan, to the Palace or the aitive"a^d 
Arsenal, the first merit, that which admits neither substitute J^omestic 

hie. 

nor equivalent, is, that ever?/ thing is in its place. Where this 
charm is wanting, every other merit either loses its name, or 
becomes an additional ground of accusation and regret. Of one, 
by whom it is eminently possessed, we say proverbially, that 
he is like clockwork. The resemblance extends beyond the 
point of regularity, and yet faUs short of the truth. Both do, 
indeed, at once divide and announce the silent and otherwise 



24 IxXTRODUCTION. fSEC. II. 

Character indistinguishable lapse of time; but the man of Methodical 
methodical industry and honourable pursuits, does more; he realizes its 
'"'^* ideal divisions, and gives a character and individuality to its 

moments. If the idle are described as killing time, he may be 
justly said to call it into life and moral being, wliile he makes 
it the distinct object not only of the consciousness, but of the 
conscience. He organizes the hours, and gives them a soul : 
and to that, the very essence of which is to fleet, and to have 
been, he communicates an imperishable and a spiritual nature. 
Of the good and faithful servant, whose energies, thus directed, 
are thus methodized, it is less truly affirmed, that he lives in 
Time, than that Time lives in him. His days, months, and 
years, as the stops and punctual marks in the records of duties 
performed, will survive the wreck of worlds, and remain extant 
when Time itself shall be no more. 
Method in Let US carry our views a step higher. What is it that first 
the^sis^n V strikes us, and strikes us at once in a man of education, and 
mental which, among educated men, so instantly distinguishes the man 
of superior Mind ? Not always the weight or novelty of his 
remarks, nor always the interest of the facts which he com- 
municates ; for the subject of conversation may chance to be 
trivial, and its duration to be short. Still less can any just 
admiration arise from any peculiarity in his words and phrases ; 
for every man of practical good sense will follow, as far as the 
matters under consideration will permit him, that golden rule 
of C«sar — Insolens verhum, tanquam scopulum, evitare. The 
true cause of the impression made on us is, that his mind is 
and of methodical. We perceive tliis in the unpremeditated and 
mtellect, evidently habitual arrangement of his words, flowing spon- 
taneously and necessarily from the clearness of the leading 
Idea ; from which distinctness of mental vision, when men are 
fully accustomed to it, they obtain a habit of foreseeing at the 
beginning of every instance how it is to end, and how all its 



SEC. II. J ILLUSTRATIOXS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 25 

parts may be brouglit out in the best and most orderly suc- 
cession. However irregular and desultory the conversation 
may happen to be, there is MetJwd in the fragments. 

Let us once more take an example which must come '' home Method in 
to every man's business and bosom." Is there not a Method in formance of 
tlie discharge of all our relative duties ? And is not he the ™°^^^ ^^^^ 
truly virtuous and truly happy man, who seizing first and 
laymg hold most firmly of the great first Truth, is guided by 
that divine light through all the meandring and stormy courses 
of his existence ? To him every relation of life afibrds a 
prolific Idea of duty ; by pursuing which into all its practical 
consequences, he becomes a good servant or a good master, a 
good subject or a good sovereign, a good son or a good father ; 
a good friend, a good patriot, a good Christian, a good man ! 

It cannot be deemed foreign from the purposes of our Method in 
Disquisition, if we are anxious, before we leave this part of the conducive 
subiect, to attract the attention of our readers to the importance to /worldly 

'J ' -T interest m 

of speculative meditation (wliich never wiU be fruitful unless it the promo- 
be methodical) even to the worldly mterests of mankind. We regulation 
can recall no incident of human history that impresses the discovery, 
imagination more deeply than the moment, when Columbus, on 
an unknown ocean, first perceived that startling fact, the 
change of the magnetic needle ! How many such instances 
occur in History, where the Ideas of Nature ( presented to 
chosen minds by a Higher Power than Nature herself) suddenly 
unfold, as it were, in prophetic succession, systematic views 
destined to produce the most important revolutions in the state 
of Man ! The clear spirit of Columbus was doubtless eminently Cohimbus 
methodical. He saw distinctly that great leading Idea, which cess by a 
authorized the poor pilot to become " a promiser of kingdoms :" f^^a^"^ 
and he pursued the progressive development of the mighty 
truth with an unyielding firmness, which taught him to " rejoice 
in lofty labours." Our readers will perhaps excuse us for 



26 



INTRODUCTION. 



In the 
strength of 
an Idea he 
conquers, 
at last, 
though long 
contemned 
both by 
Princes 
and the 
Populace. 



An initia- 
tive or 
previous 
mental act 
indispensa- 
ble in 
physical as 
well as in 
mathema- 
tical 
studies. 



[sec. II. 

quoting, as illustrative of what we have here observed, some 
lines from an Ode of Chiabrera's, which, in strength of thought 
and lofty majesty of Poetry, has but ** few peers in ancient or 
in modern Song." 

Columbus. 

Certo da cor, ch' alto destin non scelse. 

Son I'imprese magnanime neglette ; 

Ma le beir alme alle bell' opre elctte 

Sanno gioir nelle fatiche eccelse : 

Ne biasmo popolar, frale catena, 

Spirto d'onore, il suo cammin raifrena. 
Cos! lunga stagion per modi indegni 

Europa disprezzo I'inclita speme, 

Schernendo il vulgo, e seco i Regi insierae, 

Nudo nocchier, promettitor di Regni ; 

Ma per le sconosciute onde marine 

L'invitta prora ei pur sospinse al fine. 
Qual tiom, che torni alia gentil consorte, 

Tal ei da sua magion spiego I'antenne ; 

L'ocean corse, e i turbini sostenne, 

Vinse le crude immagini di morte ; 

Poscia, deir ampio mar spenta la guerra, 

Scorse la dianzi favolosa teiTa. 
Allor dal cavo pin scende veloce, 

E di grand' orma il nuovo mondo imprime ; 

Ne men ratto per 1' aria erge sublime, 

Segno del Ciel, I'insuperabil Croce ; 

E porge umile esempio, onde adorarla 

Debba sua gente. Chiabrera, P. I. 12. 

We do not mean to rest our argument on the general utility 
or importance of Method. Every Science and every Art 
attests the value of the particular principles on which we have 
above insisted. In Mathematics they will, doubtless, be readily 
admitted; and certainly there are many marked differences 
between mathematical and physical studies; but in both a 
previous act and conception of the mind, or what we have 
called an initiative, is indispensably necessary, even to the 
mere semblance of Method. In Mathematics, the definition 
makes the object, and pre-establishes the terms, which alone 
can occur in the after reasoning. If an existing circle, or what 



SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIEXCE OF METHOD. 27 

is supposed to be such, be found not to bave the radii from the In Mathe- 
centre to the circumference perfectly equal, it will in no pei-fect Idea 
manner affect the Mathematician's reasoning on the properties ^^.^^J ^Jj^^ 
of circles ; it will only prove that the figure in question is not definition 

. . A TV r 1 • 1 P^^^^'^^^ the 

a circle according to the previous definition. A Mathematical reasoning. 
Idea, therefore, may be perfect. But the place of a perfect 
Idea cannot be exactly supplied, in the sciences of experiment 
and observation, by any theory built on generalization. For 
what shall determine the mind to one point rather than another ; 
within what limits, and from what number of individuals, shaU 
the generalization be made ? The theory must still require a 
prior theory for its own legitimate construction. The Physical I'^ Physics 

^ . y ° . *^ , thedefini- 

defimtion follows and does not precede the reasoning. It is tion is 
representative, not constitutive, and is indeed little more than tivTiwt^ 
an abbreviature of the preceding observation, and the deduc- JPJ^stitu- 
tions therefrom. But as the observation, though aided by /o^^o«^s the 

MT'i !• n Tr««« reasoning. 

experiment, is necessarily limited and imperfect, the definition 
must be equally so. The history of theories, and the fre- 
quency of their subversion by the discovery of a single new 
fact, supply the best illustrations of this truth. 

But in Experimental Philosophy, it may be said, how much Discoveries 
do we not owe to accident ? Doubtless : but let it not be for- mental 
gotten, that if the discoveries so made stop there ; if they do yaiuele?^ 
not excite some master Idea ; if they do not lead to some *^^^ *^^y 

T /• 1 1 ^ J ^ ^ lead to 

Law ; (m whatever dress of theory or hypothesis the fashions some Law. 
and prejudices of the time may disguise or disfigure it ;) the 
discoveries may remain for ages limited in their uses, insecure 
and unproductive. How many centuries, we might have said 
millennia, have passed since the first accidental discovery of 
the attraction and repulsion of light bodies by rubbed amber, 
&c. Compare the interval with the progress made within less 
than a century, after the discovery of the pJicenomena that led 
immediately to a theory of Electricity. That here, as in 



28 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II. 

Eictricity. many other instances, the theory was supported by insecure 
hypotheses; that by one theorist two heterogeneous fluids 
were assumed, the vitreous and the resinous; by another, 
a plus and minus of the same fluid ; that a third considered 
it. a mere modification of Hght; while a fourth composed the 
electrical aura of oxygen, hydrogen, and caloric : all this does 
but place the truth we have been insistmg on in a stronger and 
clearer light. For, abstract from all these suppositions, or 
rather unaginations, that which is common to, and involved in 
them all; and there will remain neither notional fluid or 
fluids; nor chemical compounds, nor elementary matter, — 
but the Idea of two — opposite — forces, tending to rest by equi- 
librium. These are the sole factors of the calculus, alike in 
all the theories : these give the Law and with it the Method of 
arranging the phcenomena. For this reason it may not be rash 
to anticipate the nearest approaches to a correct system of Elec- 
tricity from those Philosophers, who, since the year 1798, have 
presented the Idea most distinctly as such, rejecting the 
hypothesis of any material substratum, and contemplating in 
all Electrical phenomena the operation of a Law wliich reigns 
through all Nature, viz. the law of polarity, or the manifesta- 
tion of one power by opposite forces. 

Magnetism. How great the contrast between Electricity and Magnetism ! 
From the remotest antiquity, the attraction of iron by the 
magnet was known, and noticed ; but century after century it 
remained the undisturbed property of poets and orators. The 
fact of the magnet, and the fable of the phoenix, stood on the 
same scale of utility, and by the generality of mankind, the 
latter was as much credited as the former, and considered far 
more interesting. In the Xlllth century, however, or perhaps 
earlier, the polarity of the magnet, and its communicability to 
iron, were discovered. We remain in doubt whether this dis- 
covery were accidental, or the result of theory ; if the former. 



SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 29 

the purpose wliich it soon suggested was so grand and important, 

that it may well be deemed the proudest trophy ever yet raised 

by accident in the service of mankind. But still it furnished 

no genmne Idea ; it led to no Law, and, consequently, to no 

Method : though a variety of phenomena, as startling as they 

are at present mysterious, have forced on us a presentiment of 

its intimate connection with other great agencies of Nature. 

We would not be understood to assume the power of predicting 

to what extent, or in what directions, that connection may 

hereafter be traced ; but amidst the most higenious hypotheses 

that have yet been formed on the subject, we may notice that 

which, corabining the three primary Laws of Magnetism, Hypothesis 

Electricity, and Galvanism,^ considers them all as the results of considers 

one common power, essential to all material construction in the ^f °f ^-^^J"' 

works of Nature. It is, perhaps, more an operation of the ^"^^ Gaiva- 

• 1 nism as 

Fancy than of the Eeason, which has suggested that these three results of 
material powers are analogous to the three dimensions of space. ess^enSrHo 
Hypothesis, be it observed, can never form the groundwork of ^^^ ^l^t^"''*! 

, , ° construc- 

a true scientific method, unless when the hypothesis is either a tion. 
true Idea projDOsed in an hypothetical form, or at least the 
symbol of an Idea as yet unknown, of a Law as yet undis- 
covered ; and in tliis latter case the hypothesis merely performs* 
the function of an unknown quantity in Algebra, and is 
assumed for the purpose of submitting the 'plicenomena to a 
scientific calculus. But to recur to the contrast presented 
by Electricity and Magnetism, in the rapid progress of the 
former, and the stationary condition of the latter : What is the 
cause of this diversity? Fewer theories, fewer hypotheses 
have not been advanced in the one than in the other ; but the 
theories and fictions of the Electricians contained an Idea, and 
all the same Idea, which has necessarily led to Method; 

* See the experiments of Coulomb, Brugmans, and Goethe. To which may be 
added, should they be confirmed, the curious observations on crystallisation, first 
made in Corsica, and since pursued in France. 



30 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. 11. 

implicit indeed, and only regulative liitherto, but wliich 
requires little more tlian the dismission of the imagery to 
become constitutive, like the Ideas of the Geometrician. On 
the contrary, the assumptions of the Magnetists (as, for instance, 
the hypothesis that the earth itself is one vast magnet, or that 
an immense magnet is concealed within it ; or that there is a 
concentric globe within the earth, revolving on its own inde- 
pendent axis) are but repetitions of the same fact ox phcenomemoriy 
looked at through a magnifying glass; the reiteration of the 
Importance problem, not its solution. This leads to the important con- 
lightening sideration, so often dwelt upon, so forcibly urged, so powerfully 
m-ociaimr ^i^P^ifi^d and explained by our great countryman ^Bacon, that 
an Idea. Qj^g f^c^ ig often worth a thousand. 8atis scimus, says he, 
axiomata recte inventa, tota agmina operum secum trahere. 
Hence his indignant reprobation of the vis experimentalis, cceca, 
stupida, vaga, prcerupta I Hence his just and earnest exliort- 
ations to pursue the experimenta lucifera, and those alone; 
discarding, for their sakes, even the fructifera experimemta. 
The Natural Philosopher, who cannot, or will not see, that it is 
the " enlightening " fact, which really causes all the others to 
he facts, in any Scientific sense — he who has not the head to 
comprehend, and the soul to reverence this parent experiment 
— he to whom the evpr]ica is not an exclamation of joy and 
rapture, a rich reward for years of toil and patient suffering — 
to him no auspicious answer will ever be granted by the Oracle 
of Nature. 
Zoology. We have said that improgressive arrangement is not Method : 

and in proof of this we appeal to the notorious fact, that 
Zoology, soon after the commencement of the latter half of 
the last century, was falling abroad, weighed doAvn and crushed 
as it were by the inordinate number and multiplicity of facts 
and phcenomena apparently separate, without evincing the least 
promise of systematizing itself by any inward combination of its 



SEC. il] illustrations of the science of method. 31 

parts. John Hunter, wlio liad appeared, at times, almost a 
stranger to the grand conception, wliicli yet never ceased to 
work in Hm, as liis genius and governing spirit, rose at length 
in the horizon of Physiology and Comparative Anatomy. In 
his printed Works, the finest elements of system seem ever- 
more to flit before liim, twice or thrice only to have been seized, 
and after a momentary detention, to have been again suffered 
to escape. At length, in the astonishing preparations for his 
Museum, he constructed it, for the Scientific apprehension, out 
of the unspoken alphabet of Nature. Yet notwitlistanding the 
imperfection in the annunciation of the Idea, how exliilarating 
have been the results 1 It may, we believe, be afiirmed, with 
safety, that whatever is grandest in the views of CuviER, is 
either a reflection of this light, or a continuation of its rays, 
well and wisely directed, through fit media, to its appropriate 
object. 

From Zoology, or the laws of animal life, to Botany, or Botany, 
those of vegetable life, the transition is easy and Natural. In 
this pursuit, how striking is the necessity of a clear Idea, as 
initiative of aU Method! How obvious the importance of 
attention to the conduct of the Mind in the exercise of Method 
itself ! The lowest attempt at Botanical arrangement consists 
in an artificial classification of plants, for the preparatory 
purpose of a nomenclature ; but even in this, some antecedent 
must have been contributed by the Mind itself; some purpose 
must be in view ; or some question at least must have been 
proposed to Nature, grounded, as all questions are, upon some 
Idea of the answer. As for instance, the assumption. 

That two great sexes animate the world. 

For no man can confidently conceive a fact to be universally 
true who does not proportionally anticipate its necessity, and 
who does not believe that necessity to be demonstrable by an " 
insight into its nature, whenever and wherever such insight 



32 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II. 

Obligations can be obtained. We acknowledge, we reverence, tlie obliga- 
te Linnaus tions of Botany to LlNN^US, wlio adopting from Bartliolinus 
servtceable ^^^ otliers the sexuality of plants, grounded thereon a sclieme 
scheme of of classific and distinctive marks, by wliick one man's experience 

arrange- . . 

meat, may be communicated to others, and the objects safely reasoned 
on .while absent, and recognized as soon as and wherever they 
occur. He invented an universal character for the Language 
of Botany, chargeable with no greater imperfections than are 
to be found in the alphabets of every particular Language. 
The first requisites in investigating the works of Nature, as in 
studying the Classics, are a proper Accidence and Dictionary ; 
and for both of these Botany is indebted to the illustrious 
Swede. But the inherent necessity, the true Idea of Sex, was 
never fully contemplated by Linnaeus, much less that of vege- 
tation itself. Wanting these master-lights, he was not only 
unable to discern the collateral relations of the Vegetable to the 
Mineral and Animal Worlds; but even in respect to the 
doctrine which gives name and character to his system, he 
only avoided Scylla to fall upon Charybdis : and such must be 
the case of every one, who in this uncertain state of the 
initiative Idea, ventures to expatiate among the subordinate 
notions. If we adhere to the general notion of sex, as abstracted 
from the more obvious modes in which the sexual relation 
manifests itself, we soon meet with whole classes of plants to 
which it is found inapplicable. If, arbitrarily, we give it 
indefinite extension, it is dissipated into the barren truism, that 
all specific products suppose specific means of production. 
Thus a growth and a birth are distinguished by the mere verbal 
definition, that the latter is a whole in itself, the former not : 
and when we would apply even this to Nature, we are baffled 
by objects (the flower polypus, &c. &c.) in which each is the 
other. All that can be done by the most patient and active 
industry, by the widest and most continuous researches ; all 



SEO. n.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 33 

that tKe amplest survey of the vegetable realm, brought under 
immediate contemplation by the most stupendous collections of 
species and varieties, can suggest ; all that minutest dissection 
and exactest chemical analysis can unfold; all that varied 
experiment and the position of plants and their component 
parts in every conceivable relation to light, heat, and whatever 
else we distinguish as imponderable substances ; to earth, air, 
water ; to the supposed constituents of air and water, separate 
and in all proportions — in short, all that chemical agents and re- 
agents can disclose or adduce ; — all these have been brought, as 
conscripts, into the field, with the completest accoutrement, in 
the best discipline, under the ablest commanders. Yet after 
all that was effected by Linnaeus himself, not to mention the 
labours of Caesalpinus, Ray, Gresner, Tournefort, and the other 
heroes who preceded the general adoption of the Sexual system, 
as the basis of artificial arrangement — after all the successive 
toils and enterprises of Hedwig, Jussieu, Mirbel, Simith, 
Knight, Ellis, &c. &c. — wliat is Botany at this present hour ? 
Little more than an enormous nomenclature ; a huge catalogue. 
Men arrange, yearly and monthly augmented, in various 
editions, each with its own scheme of technical memory and its 
OAvn conveniences of reference ! The innocent amusement, 
the healthful occupation, the ornamental accomplislnnent of 
amateurs ; it has yet to expect the devotion and energies of the 
philosopher. Whether the Idea which has glanced across some 
minds, that the harmony between the Vegetable and Animal 
World is not a harmony of resemblance, but of contrast, may 
not lead to a new and more accurate Method in this engaging 
Science, it becomes us not here to determine : but should its 
objective truth be hereafter demonstrated by induction of facts 
in an unbroken series of correspondences in Nature, we shall 
then receive it as a Law of organic existence ; and shall thence 
obtain another splendid proof, that with the knowledge of Law 

D 



34 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II. 

alone dwell power and propKecy, decisive experiment, and 
scientific Method. 
Chemistry. Such, too, is the case with the substances of the Laboratory, 
which are assumed to be incapable of decomposition. They 
are mere exponents of some one Law, which the Chemical 
Philosopher, whatever may be his Theory, is incessantly 
labouring to discover. The Law, indeed, has not yet assumed 
the form of an Idea in his Mind ; it is what we have called an 
Instinct; it is a pursuit after unity of principle, through a 
diversity of forms. Thus as " the lunatic, the lover, and the 
poet," suggest each other to Shakspeare's Theseus, as soon as 
his thoughts present to him the ONE FORM, of which they are 
but varieties ; so water and flame, the diamond, the charcoal, 
and the mantling champagne, with its ebullient sparkles, are 
convoked and fraternized by the theory of the Chemist. This 
is, in truth, the first charm of Chemistry, and the secret of the 
almost universal interest excited by its discoveries. The serious 
complacency which is afforded by the sense of truth, utility, 
permanence, and progression, blends with and ennobles the 
exhilarating surprise and the pleasurable sting of curiosity, 
which accompany the propounding and the solving of an 
enigma. It is the sense of a principle of connection given by 
the mind, and sanctioned by the correspondency of Nature. 
Hence the strong hold which in all ages Chemistry has had on 
the imagination. If in the greatest poets we find Nature 
idealized through the creative power of a profound yet observant 
meditation, so through the meditative observation of a Davt, a 
WoLLASTON, a Hatchett, or a Murray, 

By som€ connatural force, 
Powerful at greatest distance to unite 
With secret amity things of like kind, 

we find poetry, as it were, substantiated and realized. 

Tliis consideration leads us from tlie paths of Physical 



SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF iHE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 35 

Science into a region apparently very different. Those who Poetry 
tread the enchanted ground of Poetry, oftentimes do not even Method, 
suspect that there is such a thing as Method to guide their 
steps. Yet even here we undertake to show that it not only 
has a necessary existence, but the strictest Philosophical appli- 
cation ; and that it is founded on the very Philosophy which 
has furnished us with the Principles already laid down. It 
may surprise some of our readers, especially those who have 
been brought up in Schools of foreign taste, to find that we 
rest our proof of these assertions on one single evidence, and 
that that evidence is Shakspeare, wdiose Mind they have, 
probably, been taught to consider as eminently immethodical. cAndenced 
In the first place, Shakspeare was not only endowed with great piays of 
native genius, (which indeed he is commonly allowed to have ^ "^P^^^^- 
been,) but what is less frequently conceded, he had much 
acquired knowledge. '' His information," says Professor 
Wilde, " was great and extensive, and his reading as great as 
his knowledge of Languages could reach. Considering the bar 
which liis education and circumstances placed in his way, he 
had done as much to acquire knowledge as even Milton. A 
thousand instances might be given of the intimate knowledge ^^^^^^' 

° ° . ^ speare's 

that Shakspeare had of facts. I shall mention only one. I do knowledge 
not say, he gives a good account of tlie Salic law, though a by his 
much worse has been given by many antiquaries. But he who of rdatious, 
reads the Archbishop of Canterbury's speech in Henry the 
Fifth, and who shall afterwards say that Shakspeare was not a 
man of great reading and information, and who loved the thing 
itself, is a person whose opinion I would not ask or trust upon 
any matter of investigation." Then was aU this reading, all 
this information, all this knowledge of our great dramatist, a 
mere rudis indigestaque moles ? Very far from it. Method, 
we have seen, demands a knowledge of the relations which 
things bear to each other, or to tlie observer, or to the state and 

d2 



36 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II. 

appreliension of the hearers. In all and eacli of these was 
Shakspeare so deeply versed, that ha the personages of a play, 
he seems *' to mould his mind as some incorporeal material 
alternately into all their various forms." ^ In every one of his 
various characters we still feel ourselves commmiing with 
the same human nature. Everywhere we find mdividuality : 
nowhere mere portrait. The excellence of his productions 
consists in a happy union of the universal with the particular. 
But the universal is an Idea. Shakspeare, therefore, studied 
mankind in the Idea of the human race ; and he followed out 
that Idea into all its varieties, by a Method which never failed 
to guide his steps aright. Let us appeal to him to illustrate, 
by example, the difference between a sterile and an exuberant 
mind, in respect to what we have ventured to call the Science 
Comparison of Method. On the one hand observe Mrs. Quickly 's relation 
Quickly's of the circumstanccs of Sir John Falstaff 's debt : — 

relation of Falstaff. What is the gross sum that I owe thee ? 

falstaff s •^jj.g^ Quickly, Marry, if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. 

' Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my dolphin chamber, 

at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun week, when the 
prince broke thy head for likening his father to a singing man in Windsor — thou 
didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me 
my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it ? Did not goodwife Keech, the Butcher's 
wife, come in then and call me gossip Quickly ? — coming in to borrow a mess of 
vinegar : telling us she had a good dish of prawns — whereby thou didst desire to eat 
some — whereby I told thee they were ill for a green wound," &c. &c. &c. 

{Henry IV. P. I. Act 11. Scene I.) 

On the other hand consider the narration given by Hamlet 
to Horatio, of the occurrences during his proposed transporta- 
tion to England, and the events that interrupted liis voyage. 
{Act V. Scene II) 

a narration Ham. Sir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting 

of Hamlet That would not let me sleep : methought I lay 

to Horatio. Worse than the mutines in the bilboes. Rashly, 

And prais'd be rashness for it Let us know, 



6 T^v eavTOv 'ipvxh>^ Si-T€i vArjv riva acrwfiaTOV fj.op<pa7s Troi/ctAaTs fxopcpdoaai. 

THEiUSllUS. 



SEC. TI.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 37 

Our indiscretion sometimes serves us vcell, 
When our deep plots do fail : and that should teach us 
T/iere's a Divinity that shapes our ends^ 
Hough-hew them how we will. 

Hon. That is most certain. 

Ham. Up from my cabin, 

My sea-gown scarfd about me, in the dai'k 

Grop'd I to find out them ; had my desire ; 

Finger'd their packet; and, in fine, withdrew 

To my own room again : making so bold. 

My fears forgetting manners, to unseal 

Their grand commission ; where I found, Horatio, 

A royal knavery — an exact command. 

Larded with many several sorts of reasons, 

Importing Denmark's health, and England's toOf 

With ho ! such bugs and goblins in my life, 

That on the supervise, no leisure bated. 

No, not to stay th? grinding of the axe, 

My head should be strucK off ! 
HOR. Is't possible ? 

Ham. Here's the commission. — Read it at more leisure. 
I sat me down ; 

Devis'd a new commission ; wrote it fair. 

/ once did Jtold it, as our statists do, 

A baseness to write fair, and labour'd much 

JIow to forget that learning ; but, sir, now 

It did me yeoman's senice. Wilt thou know 

The effect of what I wrote ? 
HoR. Ay, good my lord. 
Ham. An earnest conjuration from the king, 

As England was his faithful tributary ; . 

As love between them, like the palm, might flourish } 

As peace should still her wheaten garland wear, 

And many such like As^s of great charge — 

That, on the view and knowing of these contents, 

He should the bearers put to sudden death, 

No shriving time allowed. 
HoR. How was this sealed ? 
Ham. Why, even in that was heaven ordinant. 

I had my father's signet in my purse, 

Which was the model of that Danish seal : 

Folded the writ up in the form of the other ; 

Subscribed it ; gave't the impression ; plac'd it safelj", 

The changeling never known. Now, the next day 

Was our sea-fight ; and what to this was sequent 

Thou knowest already 



38 INTKODUCTION. [SEC. II 

Both dis- If, overlooking the different value of the matter in these two 

courses ira- . • t i i /> • 

methodical narrations, we consider only the lorm, it must be confessed that 
m form. ^^^^ ^^^ immethodieol. We have asserted that Method results 
from a balance between the passive impression received from 
outward things, and the internal activity of the mind in re- 
flecting and generalizing ; but neither Hamlet nor the Hostess 
That of holds this balance accurately. In Mrs. Quickly, the memory 
Quickly alone is called into action, the objects and events recur in the 
resulting ^^ narration in the same order, and with the same accompani- 
rrom the ments, howcver accidental or impertinent, as they had first 

power of i. ' J 

thought, occurred to the narrator. The necessity of taking breath, the 
efforts of recollection, and the abrupt rectification of its failures, 
produce all her pauses, and constitute most of her connections. 
That of But when we look to the Prince of Denmark's recital the case 
governedby is widely different. Here the events, with the circumstances 
reflection ^£ ^-^^ ^^^ place, are all stated with equal compression and 
rapidity ; not one introduced which could have been omitted 
without injury to the intelligibility of the whole process. If 
any tendency is discoverable, as far as the mere facts are in 
question, it is to omission : and accordingly the reader will 
observe that the attention of the narrator is called back to one 
material circumstance, which he was hurrying by, by a direct 
question (How WAS THIS SEALED ?) from the friend to whom 
the story is communicated. But by a trait, which is indeed 
peculiarly characteristic of Hamlet's mind, ever disposed to 
generalize, and meditative to excess, all the digressions and 
enlargements consist of reflections, truths, and principles of 
general and permanent interest, either directly expressed or 
disguised in playful satire. 

Instances of the want of generalization are of no rare occur- 
rence ; and the narration of Shakspeare's Hostess differs from 
those of the ignorant and unthinking in ordinary life, only by 
its superior humour, the poet's own gift and infusion, not by 



SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIEXCE OF METHOD. 39 

its want of Method, wliicli is not greater tlian we often meet The Hos- 
witli in that class of minds of which she is the dramatic repre- of methoil 
sentative. Nor will the excess of generalization and reflection ^°"?"?J!" '^ 
have escaped our obser\^ation in real life, though the great Poet 
' has more conveniently supplied the illustrations. In attending 
too exclusively to the relations wliich the past or passing events 
and objects bear to general truth, and the moods of his own 
mind, the most intelligent man is sometimes in danger of over- 
looking that other relation, in which they are likcAvise to be 
placed to the apprehension and sympathies of his hearers. His 
discourse appears like soliloquy intermixed with dialogue. But 
the uneducated and unreflecting talker overlooks all mental 
relations, and consequently precludes all Method that is not 
purely accidental. Hence, the nearer the things and incidents 
in time and place, the more distant, disjointed, and impertinent 
to each other, and to any common purpose, will they appear in 
his narration : and this from the absence of any leading thought 
in the narrator's own mind. On the contrary, where the habit 
of Method is present and eiFectire, things the most remote and 
diverse in time, place, and outward circumstance, are brought 
into mental contiguity and succession, the more strildng as the 
less expected. But while we would impress the necessity of 
this habit, the illustrations adduced give proof that in undue 
preponderance, and when the prerogative of the mind is 
stretched into despotism, the discourse may degenerate into the 
wayward, or the fantastical. 

Shakspeare needed not to read Horace in order to give his Consistency 
characters that Methodical Unity which the wise Roman so speare's" 
strongly recommends : — characters. 

Si quid inexpertum scenae oommittis, et audes 
Personam fonnare novara ; servetur ad imum 
Qualis ab incoepto processerit, et sibi constet. 

But this was not the only way in wliich he followed an accu- 
rate Philosophic Method • we quote the expressions of SCHI/E- 



40 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II: 

His just GEL, a foreign critic of great and deserved reputation : — " If 
of Passion Shakspeare deserves our admiration for his characters, he is 
arose from ^q^allj deserving of it for his exhibition of Passion, taking 
tempiation this word in its vddest signification as including every mental 
condition, every tone, from indifference or familiar mirth to the 
wildest rage and despair. He gives us the history of minds : 
he lays open to us, in a single word, a whole series of preceding 
conditions r This last is a profound and exquisite remark : 
and it necessarily implies, that Shakspeare contemplated Ideas, 
in which alone are involved conditions and consequences ad 
infinitum. Purblind critics, whose mental vision could not 
reach far enough to comprise the whole dimensions of our 
poetical Hercules, have busied themselves in measuring and 
spanning him muscle by muscle, till they fancied they had 
Coiidemna- discovered some disproportion. There are two answers appli- 
cisms on Cable to most of such remarks. First, that Shakspeare under- 
answered^*^ stood the true language and external workings of Passion better 
than his critics. He had a higher, and a more Ideal, and con- 
sequently a more Methodical sense of harmony than they. A 
very slight knowledge of Music will enable any one to detect 
discords in the exquisite harmonies of Haydn or Mozart ; and 
Bentley has found more false grammar in the Paradise Lost 
than ever poor boy was whipped for through all the forms of 
Eton or Westminster ; but to know why the minor note is 
introduced into the major key, or the nominative case left to 
seek for its verb, requires an acquaintance with some preliminary 
steps of the Methodical scale, at the top of which sits the author. 
His and at the bottom the critic. The second answer is, that 

^loeUcal^and Shakspeare was pursuing two Methods at once ; and besides 
psychoio- the Psychological^ Method, he had also to attend to the 

^ We beg pardon for the use of this insolens verbum ; but it is one of which our 
Language stands in great need. We have no single term to express the Philosophy 
of the Human J^Iind : and what is worse, the Principles of that Philosophy are 
commonly called Metaphysical, a word of very different meaning. 



SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 41 

Poetical. Now the Poetical Method requires above all tilings 
a preponderance of pleasurable feeling : and where the interest 
of the events and characters and passions is too strong to be 
continuous without becoming painful, there Poetical Method 
requires that there should be what Sclxlegel calls " a musical 
alleviation of our sympathy." The Lydian mode must temper 
tJie Dorian. This we call Method. 

We said that Shakspeare pursued two Methods. Oh ! he 
pursued many, many more — " both oar and ^sail" — and the 
guidance of the helm, and the heaving of the lead, and the 
watchful observation of the stars, and the thunder of his grand 
artillery. Wliat shall we say of his Moral conceptions ? Not 
made up of miserable clap-traps, and the tag-ends of mawkish 
Novels and endless sermonizing; — ^but furnisliing lessons of 
profound meditation to frail and fallible Human Nature. He 
shows us Crime and Want of Principle clothed not with a Shak- 
spurious greatness of soul, but with a force of intellect wliich ^qyz\ con- 
too often imposes but the more easily on the weak, misjudging ^^P^^*^fs 
multitude. He shows us the innocent mind of Othello plimged ptilosophi- 

, . . 1 1 r* ^ n ^ (' ~^ ^^^ method, 

by its own unsuspectmg, and therefore unwatchful confidence, 
into guilt and misery not to be endured. Look at Lear, look 
at Eichard, look in short at every Moral picture of this mighty 
Moralist ! Whoso does not rise from their attentive perusal 
'^ a sadder and a wiser man" — let him never dream that he 
knows anything of Philosophical Method. 

Nay, even in his style, how Methodical is our '' sweet His stylo 
Shakspeare." Sweetness is, indeed, its predominant character- 
istic ; and it has a few immethodical luxuriances of wit ; and 
he may occasionally be convicted of words, which convey a 
volume of thought, when the business of the scene did not 
absolutely require such deep meditation. But pardoning him 
these dulcia vitia, who ever fashioned the English Language, 
or any Language, ancient or modern, into such variety of appro- 



42 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. U. 

__^ priate apparel, from ** the gorgeous pall of scepter'd tragedy," 
to the easy dress of flowing pastoral ? 

More musical than lark to shepherd's ear, 
When wheat is green and hawthorn buds appear. 

Wlio, like him, could so Methodically suit the very flow and 
tone of discourse to characters lying so widely apart in rank, 
and habits, and peculiarities, as Holofernes and Queen Katha- 
rine, FalstafF and^Lear ? When we compare the pure English 
style of Shakspeare with that of the very best writers of liis 
day, we stand astonished at the Method by which he was 
directed in the choice of those words and idioms, which are as 
fresh now as in their first bloom ; nay, w^hich are at the present 
moment at once more energetic, more expressive, more natural, 
and more elegant, than those of the happiest and most admired 
living speakers or writers. 

But Shakspeare was "not Methodical in the structure of his 

Fable." Oh, gentle critic ! be advised. Do not trust too much 

to your professional dexterity in the use of the scalping knife 

and tomahawk. Weapons of diviner mould are wielded by 

your adversary ; and you are meeting him here on his own 

peculiar ground, the ground of Idea, of Thought, and of inspi- 

Shak- ration. The very point of this dispute is Ideal. The question 

alleo-ed is one of Unit?/ : and Unity, as we ha>e shown, is wholly the 

Ihe Unices subject of Ideal law. There are said to be three great Unities 

examined, wliich Shakspeare has violated; those of Time, Place, and 

Action. Now the Unities of Time and Place we will not 

dispute about. Be ours the Poet, 

qui pectus inaniter angit 
Irritat, mulcet, falsis terrorihus implet 
Ut magus, et mode me Thebis, mode ponit Athenis. 

The Dramatist who circumscribes liimself within that Unity of 
Time which is regulated by a stop-watch, may be exact, but 
is not Methodical ; or his Method is of the least and lowest 
class. But 



SEC. n.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 43 

Where is he living dipt in with the sea, 

That chides the banks of England, Wales, or Scotland, 

who can transpose the scenes of Macbeth, and make the seated 
heart knock at the ribs with the same force as now it does, 
when the mysterious tale is conducted from the open heath, on 
which the Weird Sisters are ushered in with thunder and light- 
ning, to the fatal fight of Dunsinane, in which their victim 
expiates with life, his credulity and his anfbition ? To the dis- 
grace of the English Stage, such attempts have, indeed, been 
made on almost all the Dramas of Shakspeare. Scarcely a 
season passes which does not produce some varepov Trporepoy of 
this kind, in which the mangled limbs of our great Poet are 
thrown together '* in most admired disorder." There was once 
a noble Author, who, by a refined species of murder, cut up 
the play of Julius C«sar into two good set Tragedies. Voltaire, 
we believe, had the grace to make but one of it ; but whether 
his Brutus be an improvement on the model from which it was 
taken, we trust, after what we have already said, we shall 
hardly be expected to discuss. 

Thus we have seen that Shakspeare's mind, rich in stores of Poetry 
acquired knowledge, commanded all these stores and rendered whole 
them disposable, by means of his intimate acquaintance with the j^^^jj 
great laws of Thought, which form and regulate Method. We 
have seen him exemplifying the opposite faults of Method in 
two different characters; we have seen that he was liimself 
Methodical in the delineation of character, in the display of 
Passion, in the conceptions of Moral Being, in the adaptations 
of Language, in the connection and admirable intertexture of 
liis ever-interesting Fable. Let it not after this be said that 
Poetry — and under the word Poetry we will now take leave 
to include all the Works of the higher Imagination, whether 
operating by measured sound, or by the harmonies of form and 
colour, or by words, the more immediate and universal repre- 



44 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. IT. 

sentatives of Tliouglit — is not strictly Methodical ; nay, does 

not owe its wliole cliarm, and all its beauty, and all its power, 

to the Pliilosopliical Principles of Method. 

Philosophy g^t what of Philosophy herself? Shall she be exempted 

Wholly . . 

conversant from the Laws, which she has imposed on all the rest of the 

Mothod. known Universe? Longe absitl To Philosophy properly 

belongs the Education of the Mind : and all that we have 

hitherto said may be regarded as an indication (we have room 

for no more) of the chief Laws and regulative Principles of that 

education. Philosophy, the " Parent of Life," according to 

the expression of the wise Eoman Orator ; the " Mother of 

Good Deeds and of Good Sayings," the "Medicine of the 

Mind," is herself wholly conversant with Method. 

True it is that the Ancients, as well as the Moderns, had 

their machinery for the extemporaneous coinage of intellect, 

by means of wliich the scholar was enabled to make a figure on 

any and all subjects, on any and all occasions. They too had 

their glittering vapours, which (as the Comic Poet tells us) fed 

a host of Sophists — 

fieydXai 6ea\ avdpdffiv apyo7i, 
a'lTrep yv(tifj.T}v kol did\e^LV Kol vovv riixiu Tcap4xov(Ti, 
Koi TepaTciav, Koi irepiAe^LV, Kal Kpovcriv, koi KaTaXrjrpiv. 

API2T0$. Nee/). 316. 

Great goddesses are they to lazy folks, 
Who pour down on us gifts of fluent speech, 
Sense most sententious, wonderful fine effect, 
And how to talk about it and about it. 
Thoughts brisk as bees, and pathos soft and thawy. 

But the Philosophers held a course very different from that of 
the Sophists. We shall not trouble our readers with a com- 
parative view of many Systems, but we shall present to their 
admiration one mighty Ancient, and one illustrious Modern, 
Plato and Bacon. These two varieties will sufficiently 
exemplify the species. 

Of Plato's Works, tlie larprer and more valuable portion 



SEC. n.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 45 

have all one common end, wliicli comprehends and shines Plato 
through the particular purpose of each several Dialogue; and art1)f 
this is, to establish the sources, to evolve the Principles, and to ^^^thod. 
exemplify the Art of Method. This is the clue, without 
wliich it would be difficult to exculpate the noblest productions 
of the '' Divine" Philosopher from the charge of being tortuous 
and labyrinthine in their progress, and unsatisfactory in their 
ostensible results. The latter, mdeed, appear not seldom to 
have been drawn, for the purpose of startiag a new problem, 
rather than of solving the one proposed as the subject of previous 
discussion. But with the clear insight that the purpose of the 
writer is not so much to establish any particular truth, as to 
remove the obstacles, the continuance of which is preclusive of 
all truth, the whole scheme assumes a different aspect, and 
justifies itself in all its dimensions. We see that the Education 
of the Intellect, by awakening the Method of self-developement, 
was liis proposed object, not any specific information that can be 
conveyed iiito it from without. He- desired not to assist in 
storing the passive Mind with the various sorts of knowledge 
most in request, as if the Human Soul were a mere repository, 
or banqueting-room, but to place it in such relations of circum- 
stance as should gradually excite its vegetating and germinating 
powers to produce new fruits of Thought, new Conceptions, and 
Imaginations, and Ideas. Plato was a Poetic Philosopher, as 
Shakspeare was a Pliilosophic Poet. In the Poetry, as well as 
in the Philosophy, of both, there was a necessary predominance 
of Ideas ; but tliis did not make them regardless of the actual 
existences around them. They were not visionaries, nor 
mystics ; but dwelt in '^ the sober certainty" of waking know- 
ledge. It is strange, yet characteristic of the spirit that was at Plato 
work during the latter half of the last century, that the writings accused of 
of Plato should be accused of estranging the Mind from plain JJ^S^e^tiug 
experience and substantial matter-of-fact, and of debauclung it experience. 



46 INTKODUCTIOX. [SEC. II 

by fictions and generalities. Plato, wliose Method is inductive 
tlirongliout, wlio argues on all subjects not only from, but in 
and bt/, inductions of facts ! who warns us, indeed, against the 
usurpation of the Senses, but far oftener, and with more un- 
mitigated hostility, pursues the assumptions, abstractions, 
generalities, and verbal legerdemain of the Sophists. Strange 1 
but still more strange, that a notion so groundless should be 
Bacon. entitled to plead in its behalf the authority of Lord Bacox, 
whose scheme of Logic, as applied to the contemplation of 
Nature, is Platonic throughout 1 It is necessary that we should 
explain this circumstance at some length, in order to establish, 
by the concurrence of authorities, vulgarly supposed to be con- 
tradictory, the truth of a System which we have already main- 
tained on so many other grounds. 

What Lord Bacon was to England, Cicero was to Rome — 
the first and most eloquent advocate of Philosophy. It is need 
less to remind the classical scholar of that almost religious 
veneration with which the accomplished Roman speaks of Plato, 
whom indeed he calls, in one instance, deus ille noster, and in 
other places " the Homer of Philosophers ;" their " Prince ;" 
the " most weighty of all who ever spoke, or ever wrote;" 
" most wise, most holy, divine." This last appellation, too, it 
is well known, long remained, even among Christians, as a dis- 
tinguishing epithet of the great ornament of the Socratic School. 
Why Bacon should have spoken detractingly of such a man, — 
His depreci- why he should have stigmatized him with the name of 
I'Jato. '' Sophist," and described his Philosophy (with the tyrant 

Dionysius), as verba otiosorum senum ad imperitos juvenes, it is 
much easier to explain than to justify, or even to palliate. He 
was, perhaps, influenced in part by the tone given to thinking 
Minds by the Reformation ; the founders and fathers of which 
saw in the Aristotelians, or Schoolmen, the antagonists of Pro- 
testantism, and in the Italian Platonists (as they conceived) the 



SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 47 

secret enemies of Christianity itself. In part, too. Bacon may 
have formed his notions of Plato's doctrines from the absurdities 
of his misinterpreters, rather than from an -unprejudiced and 
diligent study of his Works. Be it remembered, however, that 
tliis unfairness was not less manifested to his contemporaries ; 
that his treatment of Gilbert was cold, invidious, and imjust ; 
and that he seems to have disdained to learn either the exist- 
ence or the name of Shakspeare. At this conduct no one can 
be surprised who has studied the life of this 

wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind. 

But our present business is not with his weaknesses, or his 
fiiilings, but with those Philosophical Principles which, espe- 
cially as displayed in the Novum Organuniy have deservedly 
obtained for him the veneration of succeeding Ages. 

Those who talk superficially about Bacon's Philosophy, that 
is to say, nineteen-twentietlis of those who talk about it at all, 
know little more than his induction, and the application which 
he makes of his own Method to particular classes of Physical 
facts ; applications which are at least as crude, for the Age of 
Gilbert, Galileo, and Kepler, as were those of Aristotle (whom 
he so superciliously reprehends) for the Age of Pliilip and 
Alexander. Or they may, perhaps, have been struck with his 
recommendation of tabular collections of particulars, and hence 
have placed him at the head of a Body of men, but too nume- The Minute 
rous in modem days — the Minute Philosophers. We need phgi-g. ' 
scarcely say that this is venturing his reputation on a very 
tottering basis. Let any unprejudiced ISTaturalist turn to 
Bacon's questions and proposals for the investigation of single 
problems ; to his *"' Discourse on the Winds ;" or to what may 
almost be called a caricature of his scheme, in the " Method of 
improving Natural Philosophy," by PiOBERT HoOKE'* (the 

■♦ We refer particularly to p. 22 to 42 of the above-mentioned Work ; and we 
would, above all, notice the following admii'able specimen of conlliscd and dis- 



48 INTRODUCTION. [sEC. II. 

liistory of whose PHlosopliical life is alone a sufficient answer 
to all sucLl schemes) — and then let him fairly say whether any 
desirable end could reasonably be hoped for, from this process — • 
whether by this mode of research any important discovery ever 
was made, or ever could be made ? Bacon, indeed, always 
takes care to tell us that the sole purpose and object of col- 
lecting together these particulars is to concentrate them, by 
careful selection, into universals ; but so immense is their 
number, and so various and almost endless the relations in wliich 
each is to be separately considered, that the life of an antedi- 
luvian Patriarch would be expended, and his strength and 
spirits wasted, long before he could commence the process of 
simplification, or arrive in sight of the Law, which was to reward 
the toils of the over-tasked PsYCHE.^ 

orderly minuteness : — " The history of potters, tobacco-pipe-makers, glaziers, 
glass-grinders, looking-glass-makers or foilers, spectacle-makers and optic-glass 
makers, makers of counterfeit pearl and precious stones, bugle-makers, lamp- 
blowei's, colour-makers, colour-grinders, glass-painters, enamellers, varnishers, 
colour-sellers, painters, limners, picture-drawers, makers of baby-heads, of little 
bowling stones or marbles, fustian-makers, (query, whether Poets are included in 
this trade?) music-masters, tinsey-makers, and taggers; — the history of school- 
masters, writing-masters, printers, book-binders, stage-players, dancing-masters, 
and vaulters, apothecaries, chirurgeons, seamsters, butchers, barbers, laundresses, 
and cosmetics ! &c. &c. &c. (the true nature of each of which being exactly deter- 
mined,) WILL HUGELY FACILITATE OUR INQUIRIES IN PHILOSOPHY ! ! !" 

In parallel, or rather in contrast, with the advice of Mr. Robert Hooke, may be 
fairly placed that of the celebrated Dr. Watts, which was thought by Dr. Knox to 
be worthy of insertion in the Elegant Extracts, vol. ii. p. 456, under the head of 

Directions concerning our Ideas. 
" Furnish yourselves with a rich variety of Ideas. Acquaint yourselves with 
things ancient and modern, things Natural, Civil, and Religious ; things of your 
native land, and of foreign countries ; things domestic and national ; things present, 
past, and future ; and above all, be well acquainted with God and yourselves ; with 
animal nature, and the workings of your own spirits. Such a general acquaintance 
with things will be of very great advantage." 

5 See the beautiful allegoric tale of Cupid and Psyche in the original of Apuleius. 
The tasks imposed on the hapless nymph, through the jealousy of her mother-in- 
law, and the agency by which they are at length self-performed, are noble instances 
of that hidden wisdom " where more is meant than meets the ear !" 



SEC. II.l ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIEXCE OF METHOD. 49 

Had Bacon done no more than propose these impracticable Bacon's 
projects, we should have been far from sharing the sentiments Organum. 
of respect everywhere attached to his Pliilosophical character. 
But he has performed a task of infinitely greater importance, 
by constructing that Methodical System, wliich is so elegantly 
developed in the Novum Organum. It is this wliich we pro- 
pose to compare with the Principles long before enunciated by 
Plato. In both cases the inductions are frequently as crude 
and erroneous as might readily be anticipated from the infant 
state of Katural History, Chemistry, and Physiology, in their 
several Ages. In both cases the proposed appKcations are often 
impracticable ; but setting aside these considerations, and ex- 
trajctiag from each writer that wliich constitutes his true Phi- 
losophy, we shall be convinced that it is identical, in regard to 
the Science of Method, and to the grounds and conditions of 
that Science. We do not see, therefore, how we can more 
appropriately conclude this section of our inquiry than by a 
brief statement of our renowned Countryman's own Principles 
of Method, conveyed, for the greater part, in his own words ; 
or in what more precise form we can recapitulate the substance 
of the doctrines asserted and vindicated in the preceding pages. 
For we rest our strongest pretensions to approbation en the 
fact, that we have only re-proclaimed the coinciding precepts 
of the Athenian Verulam and the British Plato. 

In the first instance. Lord Bacon, equally with ourselves, The com- 
demands, as the motive and guide of every Philosophical experi- of Plato 
ment, what we have ventured to call the intellectual or mental ^" *'*^"' 
initiative ; namely, some well-grounded purpose, some distinct 
impression of the probable results, some self-consistent anticipa^ 
tion, the ground of the prudens qucestio, (the forethoughtfid 
mquiry,) wliich he affirms to be the prior half of the knowledge 
sought, dimidium scientice. With him, therefore, as with us, 
iin Idea is an experiment proposed, an experiment is an Idea 



50 INTKODUCTION. [SEC. II. 

realized. For so lie himself informs us : — Neque scientiam 
molimur tarn sensu, vel instrumentis, quam experimentis ; 
etenim experimentorum longe major est suhtilitas, quam sensus 
ipsius, licet instrumentis exquisitis adjuti. Nam de iis loquimur 
experimentis, quoe, ad intentionem ejus quod quoeritur, perite, 
et secundum artem excogitata et apposita sunt. Itaque per- 
ceptioni sensus immediatce et proprice non multum tribuimus : 
sed eo rem deducimus, ut sensus tantum de experimento, experi- 
mentum de re judicet. The meaning of tliis last sentence is in- 
telligible enough, though involved in antithesis, merely because 
Bacon did not possess, Hke Shakspeare, a good Method in his 
style.. Wliat he means to say is, that we can apprehend, 
through the organs of sense, only the sensible phaenomena pro- 
duced by the experiment ; but by the mental power, in virtue 
of which we shaped the experiment, we can determine the 
true import of the phcenomena. 
Bacon's Now, he had before said, that he was speaking only of those 

Mind. experiments, which were skilfully adapted to the intention or 
purpose of him who conducted the research. But what is it 
that forms the intention, or purpose, and adapts thereto the 
experiment ? What Bacon calls lux intellectus ; viz. the Un- 
derstanding of the individual man, who makes the experiment. 
This light, however, as he argues at great length, is obscured 
by Idols, which are false and spurious notions. His peculiar 
use of the word Idols is again a proof of faulty Method in his 
style, for it gives a sort of pedantic air to his reasonings ; but, 
in truth, he means no more by it than what Plato means by 
Opinion, (3o^a,) which the latter calls " a medium between 
knowledge and ignorance." So, Bacon distinguishes the Idols 
of the Mind into various kinds, {Idola specus, trihus, fori, 
theatri,) that is. Opinions derived from the passions, prejudices^ 
and peculiar habits of each man's Understanding ; and as these 
Idols, or Opinions, confessedly produce a sort of mental obscu- 



SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 51 

rity, or blindness, so the ancient and tlie modem master of 
PMlosopliy botli agree in prescribing remedies and operations 
calculated to remove tbis disease ; to coucb tbe " Mind's eye/' 
and to restore it to tbe enjoyment of a purer vision. Bacon 
establisbes an unerring criterion between tbe Ideas and the 
Idols of the Mind ; namely, that the latter are empty notions, ^^^^^^^^^ 
but the ' former are the very seals and impresses of Nature ; Id^as and 

6111 pty 

that is to say, they always fit and cohere with those classes of notions, 
tilings to which they belong ; as the Idea of a circle fits and 
coheres with all true circles. His words are these : Non leve 
quiddam interest inter humance Mentis Idola, et divinoe 
Mentis Ideas, hoc est, inter placita qucedam inania, et veras 
signaturas atque impressiones factas in ereaturis, prout ratione 
sand et sicci luminis, quam, docendi causa, interpretem 
Naturae vocare consuevimus, iiiveniuntur. — Novum Organum, 
xxiii. and xxvi. 

Some Idols, says Bacon, are adventitious to the Mind ; others 
innate. And here, we may observe, that he goes somewhat 
further than the mere doctrine of innate Ideas, by holding that 
of innate Idols. However, we say not this in disparagement of 
his system, which is clear and correct ; nor, on the other hand, 
do we mean to espouse all its parts, which must be left to speak 
for themselves. A^Hiat he means by innate Idols, he thus illus- 
trates : — not only do the rays of Truth, from without, faU 
obHquely on the mirror of the Mind, but that mirror itself is not 
pure and plane; it discolours, it magnifies, it diminishes, it 
distorts. Hence, he uses the words intelleetus humanus, mens 
hominis, &c. in a sense now peculiar, but in liis day conformable 
to the language of the Schools, to signify not Intellect in general, 
or Mind ia its perfection, but the Intellect or Mind of man 
weakened and corrupted, as it is, more or less, in every indi- 
vidual. A necessary consequence of this corruption, is the 
arrogance which leads Man to take the forms and mechanism 

e2 



52 INTRODUCTION [SEC. IT. 

of Ms own reflective faculty as tlie measure of Nature and of 
the Deity. Of all Idols, or of all Opinions, this is the most 
difficult to remedy or extirpate ; and therefore, in this view, 
the Intellect of Man is more prone to error than even his 
Senses. Such is the sound and incontrovertible doctrine of 
Bacon ; but herein he does no more than repeat what both 
Plato and Heraclitus had long before urged with most impressive 
argument. The forms of the reflective facahy are subjective , 
the truths to be embraced are objective : but according to Plato 
as well as to Bacon, there can be no hope of any fruitful an< 
secure Metliod, so long as forms, merely subjective, are arbi 
trarily assumed to be the moulds of objective Truth, the seal 
and impresses of Nature. 
Bacon's What then ! Does Bacon abandon the hope of rectifjdng th 

rectifyino- obliquitics of the Human Intellect ; or does he suggest, tha 
lutellecT^^^ they will be remedied by the casual operation of external im 
pressions? Neither of these. He considers that its weak 
nesses and imperfections require to be strengthened and mad • 
perfect by a higher power ; and that this is possible to be done 
He supposes, that the Intellect of the individual, or homm 
particuUer, may be refined by the Intellect of the Ideal Man 
or homme general. He assumes, that as the evidence of th' 
Senses is corrected by the Judgment, so the evidence of th* 
Judgment, beset with Idols, may be corrected by the Judg 
ment, walking in the light of Ideas. It is surely superfluou 
to urge, that this corrector and purifier of aU reasoning, tlii; 
inextinguishable Pole-star — 

Which never in the ocean waves was wet : 

whether it be called, as by Bacon, lumen siccum, or as by 
Plato, vovg, or (pCjg voepuv, is one and the same light of Truth, 
the indispensable condition of aU pure Science, contemplative or 
experimental. Hence, it will not surprise us, that Plato so 
often denominates Ide^as living Laws, in and by whicli the 



SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIOXS OF THE SCIENCE OF ^METHOD. 53 

Mind has its whole true being and permanence ; or that Bacon, 
vice versa, names the Laws of Nature, Ideas ; and represents 
the great leading facts of Science as signatures, impressions, 
and symbols of those Ideas. A distinguishable pov/er self- 
affirmed, and seen in its unity with the Eternal Essence, is, 
according to Plato, an Idea : and the discipline by which the 
Human Mind is purified from its Idols, and raised to the con- 

^templation of Ideas, and thence to the secure and progressive 
investigation of truth and reahty, by Scientific Method, com- 
prehends what the same Philosopher so highly extols, under 
the title of Dialectic. According to Lord Bacon, as describing 
the same Truth, applied to Natural Philosophy, an Idea would 
be defined as — Intuitio, sive inventio, quoe in perceptione sensus 
non est (ut quoe puree et sicci luminis Intellectioni sit propria) 
Idearum Divince Mentis, prout in creaturis, p)er signaturas 
suas, sese patefaciant. " That," saith the juclicious HoOKER, 
" which doth assign to each thing the kind, that which deter- 
mineth the force and power, that which doth appoint the form 
and measure of working, the same we term a Law." 
' From all that has been said, it seems clear, that the only Difference 
difference between Plato and Bacon was, that, to speak in p^lJ^7o^!^nd 

■popular language, the one more especially cultivated Natural Bacon. 
Philosophy, the other Metaphysics. Plato treated principally 
of Truth, as manifested in the world of Intellect ; Bacon of the 

isame Truth, as manifested in the world of Sense ; but far from 

idisagreeing, as to the mode of attaining that Truth, far from 
differing in their great views of the education of the Mind, 
they both proceeded on the same principles of unity and pro- 
gression ; and conseqiiently both cultivated alike the iSeience 
of Method, such as we have here described it. If we are 
correct in these statements, then may we boast to have solved 
the great problem of conciliating ancient and modern Phi- 
losophy. 



54 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. n. 

Historical That the Method, of which we have hitherto treated, is not 



view. 



period. 



arbitrarily assumed in any, or all of the pursuits, to which we 
have adverted ; nor is peculiar to these in particular, but is 
founded in the Laws and necessary conditions of Human exist- 
ence, is further to be inferred from a general view of the 
History of the Human race. As in the individual, so in the 
whole community of Mankind, our cogitations have an infancy 
of aimless activity; and a youth of education and advance 
towards order ; and an opening manhood, of high hopes and 
expectations; and a settled, staid, and sober middle age, of 
ripened and deliberate judgment. 
First " The antiquity of time was the youth of the world and 

of knowledge," said Bacon. In that early age, the obedience 
of the ivill was first taught to Man. He was required to look 
up, in submission, to that Spirit of Truth, wliich, after all, we 
find to be at the head of wisdom. This innocent age was 
happily prolonged among those whose first care was to cidti- 
vate the Moral sense, and to seek in Faith the evidence of 
things not seen. To them were propounded a Spiritual 
Creator, and a Spiritual worship, and the assured hope of 
a future and Spiritual existence ; and therefore they were less 
curious to watch the motions of the stars, or to become " arti- 
ficers in brass and iron," or to "handle the harp and the 
organ." They were less wise in their generation than the 
" mighty men of old, the men of renown ; " but their Ideas 
were plain and distinct; they were "just and perfect men; " 
and they " walked with God ; " whilst, of the others, " every 
imagination of the thoughts of the heart was only evil con- 
tinually." For the latter wilfully chose an opposite Method: 
they determined to shape their convictions and deduce their 
knowledge from without, by exclusive observation of outward 
things, as the only realities. Hence they became rapidly 
civilized. They built cities, and refined on the means of sensual 



SEC. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF IMETHOD. 55 

gratification, and tlie conveniences of courtly intercourse. Tliey 
became the great masters of the agreeable, which fraternized 
readily with cruelty and rapacity; these being, indeed, but 
alternate moods of the same sensual selfishness. Thus, both 
before and af iter the Flood, the vicious of Mankind receded from 
all true cultivation, as they hurried towards civilization. 
Finally, as it was not in their power to make themselves 
wholly beasts, and to remain without a semblance of Eeligion, 
and yet, as they were faitliful to their original maxim, — deter- 
mined to receive nothing as true, but what they derived, or 
believed themselves to derive, from their senses, or (in modem 
phrase) what they could prove a posteriori, — they became 
Idolaters of the Heavens, and of the material elements ; and 
finally, out of the Idols of the Mind, they formed material 
Idols : and bowed down to stocks and stones, as to the unformed 
incorporeal Divinity. 

A new era next appeared, representative of the youth and Second 

T)6rio(l 

approaching manhood of the Hiunan Intellect : and again. 
Providence, as it were, awakened men to the pursuit of an 
Idealized Method, in the development of their faculties. 
Orpheus, Linus, Musasus, and the other Mythological Bards, 
or perhaps Brotherhoods of Bards impersonated under indi- 
vidual names, whether deriving their light, imperfectly and 
indirectly, from the inspired writings of the Hebrews, or gra- 
ciously visited, for high and important purposes, by a dawning 
of Truth in their own breasts, began to spiritualize Polytheism, 
and thereby to prevent it from producing all its natural, 
barbarizing effects. Hence the Mysteries and Mythological 
Hymns ; which, on the one hand, gradually shaped themselves 
into Epic Poetry and History, and, on the other, into Tragedy 
and Philosophy : whilst to the lifeless Statuary of the Egyptians 
was superadded a Promethean animation; and the Ideal in 
Sculpture soon extending itself to Painting and to Archi- 



56 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. II. 

lecture, tlie Fine Arts at once sKot . up to perfection by a 
Method founded wliolly on a mental initiative, and conducted 
througliout its progress by the development of Ideas. Tliis rapid 
advance, in all tilings which owe their existence and character 
to the Mind's own acts, intellectual or imaginative, forms a 
singular contrast with the rude and imperfect manner in which 
those acts were applied to the investigation of Physical Laws 
and phaenomena. Wliile Phidias, Apelles, Homer, Demosthenes, 
Thucydides, and Plato, had, each in his individual sphere, 
attained almost the summit of conceivable excellence, the 
Natural History and the Natural Philosophy of the whole World 
may be said to have lain dormant ; especially if we compare 
them with the efforts which the Moderns made in these direc- 
tions, in the very morning of their strength. 
Romaus. Of the Eoman era it is scarcely necessary to speak -at large, 

inasmuch as the Eomans were confessedly mere imitators of the 
Greeks in everything relative to Science and Art. They sus- 
tained a very important part in the Civil, and Military, and 
Ecclesiastical History of Mankind ; and their devotion to these 
objects was, in their own eyes, a sufficient apology for their 
want of originality in what they held to be far inferior pur- 
suits. 

Excudent alii spirantia mollius sera : 

Credo equidem, vivos ducent de marmore vviltus : 

Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento. 

Dark Ages. Still less wiU it be expected, that we ' should devote much 
space to the consideration of those Dark Ages, which brought 
the comitless hordes of sensual Barbarians from their ISTorthern 
forests to meet, in the Southern and middle parts of Europe, 
the spiritualizing influence of Christianity : but one remarkable 
effect of that influence we cannot suffer to pass unnoticed. 
We allude to the gradual abolition of domestic slavery, in virtue 
of a Principle essential to Christianity, by which a person is 



SEO. II.] ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 57 

eternally difierenced from a thing ; so tliat the Idea of a 
Hirnian Being necessarily excludes the Idea of property in 
tKat Being. 

We come down, tlien, to the great period of the Eeforma- Reforma- 
TIOX, which, regarded as an epoch in the education of the ^^°^* 
Human Mind, was second to none for its striking and durable 
effects. The defenders of a simple and Spiritual worsMp, 
against one which was full of outward forms and ceremonies ; 
the partisans of Eeligious liberty, against the dominion of a 
Visible Head over the whole Cliristian Church ; and, generally 
speaking, the advocates of the Ideal and internal against the 
external or imaginative, — ^maintained a zealous, and in great 
part of Europe, a prosperous conflict. But the revolution of 
Thought, and its effects on the Science of Method, were soon 
visible beyond the pale of the Church or the Cloister : and the 
Schoohnen were attacked as warmly in their Philosopliical, as 
they had before been in their Ecclesiastical character. It is 
needless to dwell on the various attempts towards introducing 
into Learning a totally new Method. That of our illustrious 
countryman, Bacon, was completely successful : and we have 
already shown that it was, in truth, the completion of the 
Ideal System, by applying the same Method to external Nature 
wliich Plato had before appHed to intellectual existence. 

It is only in the union of these two branches of one and the nyiofjgj.,, 
same Method that a complete and genuine Philosophy can be Philosophy, 
said to exist. To this consideration the great mind of Bacon 
does not seem to have been fully awake ; and hence, not only 
is the general scope of his Work directed almost exclusively to 
the contemplation of Physical Ideas, but there are occasional 
expressions which seem to have misled many of liis followers 
into a behef that he considered aU Wisdom and aU Science 
both to begin and to end with the objects of the senses. In 
this gross error are laid the foundations of the modern French 



58 INTEODUCTION. [sEC. IT. 

School, wliicli has grown up mto the monstrous puerilities oi 
CONDILLAC and CoNDORCET ; men whose names it would be 
absolutely ridiculous to mention in a History of Science, if their 
pupils did not unliappily compensate, in number, what their 
Works want in common sense and intelligibility ; and if upon 
such Writers, the French Nation did not mainly rest its pre- 
tensions to give the law to Europe in matters of Science and 
Philosophy. 



( 59 I 



SE(]TioK nr. 



APPLICATION OF THE PRINCIPLES OF IVIETHOD TO THE GENERAL 
CONCATENATION AND DEVELOPMENT OF STUDIES. 

We have alread)r dwelt so mucli on the general importance of Systematic 

_ ■ , . „ , - Ignoranca 

Method — ^we have recurred to it so irequently — we have illustrated, 
placed it in so many various lights, that we ought perhaps 
to apologize for venturmg on one more attempt to illustrate 
our meamng, partly in the way of simile, and partly of example. 
Let us, however, imagine an unlettered African, or rude, but 
musing Indian, poring over an illumined manuscript of the 
inspired volume ; with the vague, yet deep impression, that his 
fates and fortunes are, in some unknown manner, connected 
Ysrith its contents. Every tint, every group of characters, has its 
several dream. Say that, after long and dissatisfying toils, he 
begins to sort, first, the paragraplis that appear to resemble 
each other ; then the lines, the words ; nay, that he has at 
length discovered, that the whole is formed by the recurrence 
and interchange of a limited number of ciphers, letters, marks, 
and points, wliich, however, in the very height and utmost 
perfection of his attainment, he makes twenty-fold more 
numerous than they are, by classing every different form of 
the same character, intentional or accidental, as a separate 
element. And yet the whole is without soul or substance, 
a talisman of superstition, or a mockery of Science; or is 
employed perhaps, at last, to feather the arrows of death, or to 
sliine and flutter amid the plumes of savage vanity. The poor 



60 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. III. 

Indian too truly represents the state of learned and systematic 
Orderliness ignorance — arrangement guided by tlie light of no leading 

without T T • 1 n/r t 

Method. idea; mere ordernness without METHOD ! 

But see, the friendly missionary arrives ! He explains to 
him the nature of written words, translates them for him into 
his native sounds, and thence into the thoughts of his heart ; 
how many of these thoughts are then first unfolded into con- 
sciousness, which yet the awakening disciple receives not as 
aliens 1 Henceforward the book is unsealed for him ; the depth 
is opened; he communes with the spirit of the volume, as 
with a living oracle. The words become transparent : he sees 
them, as though he saw them not ; whilst he mentally devours 
the meaning they contain. From that moment, his former 
chimerical and useless arrangement is discarded, and the results 
of Method are to him life and truth. 

If some particular studies are yet confessedly deficient in the 
vivifying power of Method, we much fear that the attempts to 
bind together the whole Body of Science have been, in certain 
instances, worse than immethodical. A slight glance at the 
particular department of Literature which we have chosen, 
especially as it has been filled on the Continent, from the 
memorable combination of Deistical talent in the Dictionnaire 
Encyclopediqiie, to a Work on the same principles, said to be 
now publishing in France, will demonstrate, that the best 
interests of Mankind have sufiered serious injury from this 
cause ; that the fountains of education may be poisoned, where 
the stream appears to flow on with increasing power and 
smoothness ; and that the insinuation of sceptical principles 
into Works of Science is fraught with the greatest danger 
to posterity. 

To oppose an eiFectual barrier to the rage for desultory 
knowledge, on the one hand, and to support that body of inde- 
pendent attachment to the best principles of all knowledge. 



SEC. ni.] '^:^plicatio:t of the science of method. 61 

wMdi happily distinguislies tliis country, on tlie other, the Encyclo- 

EnCYCLOP^DIA MeTROPOLITANA has been projected. tropoiitan'a 

We do not undertake, what the most gigantic efforts of Man ^^"^^^^ 
could not acliieve, a Universal Dictionary of Knowledge, in principles 

. . of Method. 

the most absolute sense of the terms. But • estunatmg the 
importance of our task rather by the principles of unity and 
compression than by those of variety and extent, we have 
laboured to build upon what is essential that which is obviously 
useful, and upon both whatever is elegant or agreeable in 
Science ; and this, we conceive, cannot be well and usefully 
effected, but by such a Philosophical Method as we have 
abeady iudicated. 

We have shown that this Method consists in placing one 
or more particular tilings or notions, in subordination, either 
to a preconceived universal Idea, or to some lower form of the 
latter; some class, order, genus, or species, each of wliich 
derives its intellectual significancy, and scientific worth, from 
being an ascending step toward the universal ; from being its 
representative, or temporary substitute. Without this master- 
thought, therefore, there can be no true Method : and according 
as the general conception more or less clearly manifests itself 
tliroughout all the particulars, as their comiective and bond of 
unity; according as the light of the Idea is fireely diffiised 
tlirough, and completely illumines, the aggregate mass the 
Method is more or less perfect. 

The first preconception, or master-thought, on which our The mwal 
plan rests, is the moral origin and tendency of all true Science ; tendency 
in other words, our great objects are to exliibit the Arts and ^^}^^ 
Sciences in their Philosophical harmony ; to teach Philosophy the master. 
in imion mth Morals ; and to sustain Morahty by Eevealed the plan. 
Religion. 

There are, as we have before noticed, two sorts of relation, 
on the due observation of which aU Method depends. The 



62 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. Ill 

first is that whioK the Ideas or Laws of the Mind bear to each 
other ; the second, that wliich they bear to the external world : 
on the former are built the Pure Sciences ; on the latter those 
which we call Mixed and Applied. 

Pure The Pure Sbiences, then, represent pure acts of the Mind, 

and those only ; whether employed in contemplating the forms 
under which things in their first elements are necessarily viewed 
and treated by the Mind, or in contemplating the substantial 
reality of those things. 

Foi-mal Hence, in the Pure Sciences, arises the known distinction of 

aiid Real. 

formal and real : and of the first, some teach the elementary 
forms, which the Mind necessarily adopts in the processes of 
reasoning ; and others, those under which alone all particular 
objects can be grasped and considered by the Mind ; either as 
distinguishable in quantity and number, or as occupying parts 
of space. The real Sciences, on the other hand, are conversant 
with the true nature and existence, either of the created 
Universe around us, or of the guiding Principles within us, in 
the^r various modifications and distinguishing movements ; or, 
lastly, with the real nature and existence of the great Cause 
of all. 
Grammar. "We begin, then, with that class of Pure Sciences which we 
have called formal ; and of these, the first two that present 
themselves to us are Qrammar and Logic. By Grammar we 
are taught the rules of that speech which serves as the mediimi 
of Mental intercourse between man and man ; by Logic, the 
Mental operations are themselves regulated and bound together 
in a certain Method or order. As the communication of know- 
ledge is the more immediate object of our present discussion, 
so we begin with that Science by which it is regulated in its 
forms. Granunar, then, apart from the mere material con- 
sideration of the sound of words, or shape of letters, and 
regarding speech only as a tiling significant, teax^hes that there 



SEC. IIlJ APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 63 

are certain laws regulating that signification ; laws wliich are 
inunutable in their very nature ; for tlie relation wliich a noun 
bore to a verb, or a substantive to an adjective, was the same 
in the earliest days fxipo-n-wy avOpu^iroiv, in the first inteUigible 
conversations of men, as it is now ; nor can it ever vary so 
long as the powers of Thought remain the same in the Human 
Mind. Tliis, then, is a Pure Science proceeding fi:om a simple 
or elementary Idea of the form necessary for tlie conveyance of 
a single thought, and thence spreading and diffusing itself over 
all the relations of significant Language. 

Grammar brings us, naturally, to the Science of Logic, or Logic, 
the knowledge of those forms which the conceptions of the 
Mind assume in the processes of reasoning. And it is manifest 
that this Science is no less subject than the former to fixed 
laws ; for the reasoning power in Man can operate only witliin 
those limits which Almighty Wisdom has thought fit to pre- 
scribe. It is a discursive faculty, moving in a given path, and 
by allotted means. There is no possibility of subverting or 
altering the elementary rules of Logic ; for they are not 
hypothetical, or contingent, or conventional, but positive and 
necessary. 

Under the general term Mathematics are comprised the j\Lithe- 
Sciences of Geometri/, which is conversant about the laws of ^^ '^** 
figure, or limitations of space ; and Arithmetic, wliich concerns 
the laws of number. Now these laws are purely Ideal. It is 
not externally to us that the general notion of a square, or a 
triangle, of the nimiber three, or the number five, exists ; nor 
do we seek for external proof of the relations of those notions ; 
but on the contrary, by contemplating them as Ideas in the 
Mind, we discover truths which are appHcable to external 
existence. 

The Sciences which we have hitherto noticed relate to the 
forms of our Mental conceptions ; but it is natural for Man to 



64 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. III. 

seek to compreliend the principles and conditions of real exist- 
ence, both with regard to the Universe in general, with regard 
to his own internal mover, or conscience, and, above all, with 
regard to the cause by which conscience and the whole Uni- 
verse were called into being, and continue to exist, namely, 
Meta- God. Hence, as we advance from form to reality, the Sciences 
Morals,' and of Metapliysics and Morals first present themselves to view, 
^^ °^^' and these lead ns forward to the summit of Human Know- 
ledge ; for at the head of all Pure Science stands Theology, ol 
which the great fountain is Eevelation. It is obvious that 
both Metaphysics and Morals are conversant solely about those 
relations which we have called Eolations of Law; for it would 
be a contradiction to say, that a real existence could be, at the 
same time, a mere theory or hypothesis. These Sciences have, 
therefore, all the purity and all the certainty which belong to 
that which is positive and absolute ; and as far as they are dis- 
tinctly apprehended by the Mind, they approach the nearest to 
that clear intellectual light which, in the peculiar phraseology 
of Jliord Bacon, is called lumen siccum. In the proper Philo- 
sophical Method, the reahty of our speculative knowledge, 
exhibited in the Science of Metaphysics, unites itself at last 
with the reality of our Ethical sentiments displayed in that of 
Morals ; and both together are at once lost and consummated in 
Theology, which rises above the light of Eeason to that of Faith. 
Slixed and These are all the Sciences which embrace solely relations of 
Sciences. Law : and it is plain that in these, not only the initiative, but 
every subsequent step, must be an act of the Mind alone. But 
when we descend to the second order of relations, namely, 
those which we bear to the external world, Theory is imme- 
diately introduced ; new Sciences are formed, which, in contra- 
distinction from the Pure, are called the Mixed and Applied 
Sciences ; and in these, new considerations relative to Method 
necessarily find a place. 



SEC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 65 

Every Physical Theory is in some measure imperfect, because Physical 

. . ^ Theories 

it IS 01 necessity progressive ; and because we can never be imperfect 
assured that we have exhausted the terms, or that some new „!^!^ff •!„ 
discovery may not affect the whole scheme of its relations, progressive. 
The discoveries of the ponderabiKty of air, of its compound 
nature, of the increased weight of the calces, of the gases in 
general, of Electricity, and more recently the stupendous 
influences of Galvanism on the successive Chemical Theories ; 
are all so many exemphfications of tliis truth. The doctrines 
of vortices, of an universal ether, of a two-fold magnetic 
fluid, &c., are Theories of Gravitation: but the Science of 
Astronomy is founded on the Law of Gravitation, and remains 
unaffected by the rise and fall of the Theories. In the lowest 
condition of Method, the initiative is supplied by an hypothesis ; 
of which we may distinguish two degrees. In the former, a 
fact of actual experience is taken, and placed experimentally as 
the common support of certain other facts, as equally present 
in all ; thus, that oxygen is a principle of acidification and com- 
bustion is an experienced fact, and became a hypothesis by the 
assumption that it is the sole principle of acidification and 
combustion. In the latter, a fact is imagined : as, for instance, 
an atom or physical point, preternaturally hard, and therefore 
infrangible, in the Corpuscular Philosophy ; or a primitive 
unalterable figure, in some systems of Crystallisation. 

In all this we see, that Knowledge is a matter not of neces- True 
sary connection, but of a connection arising from observation lo^^Jn * 
or supposition ; that is, it consists not of Law, but of Theory ^f^^ ^^ 
or Hypothesis. True Theory is always in the first and purest 
sense a locum tenens of Law ; when it is not, it degenerates 
into hypothesis, and hypothesis melts away into conjecture. 
Both in Law and in Theory there must be a mental ante- 
cedent ; but in the latter, it may be an image or conception 
received through the senses, and originating from without; 

F 



iD6 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. III. 

yet even then there is an inspiring passion, or desire, or in- 
stinctive feeling of the truth, wliich is the inmiediate and 
proper oifspring of the Mind. Now, we may consider the 
facts which are to be reduced to Theory, as arranged over the 
whole surface of a plane circle. If, by carrying the power of 
Theory to a near identity with Law, we find the centre of the 
circle, then, proceeding toward the circumference, our insight 
into the whole may be enlarged by new discoveries ; it never 
can be wholly changed. A magnificent example of this has 
been realized in the Science of Astronomy ; a recent addition 
of facts has been effected by the discovery of other Planets, and 
our views have been rendered more distinct by the solution of 
the apparent irregularities of the Moon's motion, and their 
subsumption under the general Law of Grravitation. But the 
Newtonian was not less a system before than since the dis- 
covery of the Georgium Sidus ; not by having ascertained its 
circumference, but by having found its centre ; the livuig and 
salient point, from which the Method of discovery diverges, 
the Law in which endless discoveries are contained implicitly, 
and to wliich, as they afterwards arise, they may be referred 
in endless succession. 
Transition These reasonings, it is hoped, will sufficiently explain the 
P^ ^ nature of the transition from the JPure Sciences to the Mixed 
fh^^M-^^ J^ and Applied Sciences, and will serve to trace the inseparable 
and Applied connection of the latter with the constitution of the Human 
Mind. And as each of these great divisions of Knowledge has 
its own department in the grand Moral Science of Man, it is 
obvious that a scheme, which, like our own, not only contains 
each separately, but combines both as indivisible, the one from 
the other, must present, in the most advantageous point of 
view, whatever is usefiil and beautiful in either. In speaking 
of the Mixed and Applied Sciences we must be permitted, 
however, to remark that the word Science is evidently used in 



SEC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 67 

a looser and more popular form tlian wlien we denominate 
Mathematics, or Metaphysics, a Science ; for we know not, for 
instance, the truth of any general result of observation in 
Nosology, as we know that two and two make four, or that a 
Human person cannot be identical with another Human person. 
And, in like manner, when the word Law is used with relation 
to the Mixed and Applied Sciences, as when we speak of any 
supposed Law of Vegetation, we use a more popular language 
than when we speak of a Law of the Conscience, wliich is not 
to be prevaricated. The strictness of ancient Philosophy, there- 
fore, refused the name of Science to these pursuits ; and it 
might at least be convenient, if in speaking generally of the 
Pure, the Mixed, and the Applied Sciences, we gave them 
the common name of Studies, inasmuch as we study them aU 
alike, but we do not know them all with the same sort of 
knowledge. 

Of these, then, (be they Studies or Sciences,) we call those Mixed 
Mixed in which certain Ideas of the Mind are applied to the 
general properties of bodies, solid, fluid, and aerial ; to the 
power of vision, and to the arrangement of the Universe; 
whence we obtain the Sciences of Mechanics^ Hydrostatics , 
Pneumatics, Optics, and Astronomy. It is matter, not of 
certain Science, but of observation, that such properties do 
really exist in bodies, that vision is effected in such or such a 
manner, and that the Universe is disposed in this or that 
relative position, and subjected to certain movements of its 
parts. Therefore, these Sciences may vary, and notoriously 
have varied ; and though Kepler would demonstrate that 
Euclid Oopernieised, or had some knowledge of the System 
afterwards adopted by Copernicus ; yet of tliis there is little 
proof: and certainly, for many ages after Euclid, it was the 
universal opinion, that the Earth was the fixed and immoveable 
centre of the Universe. Nor have we here unadvisedly used 

f2 



68 INTKODUCTION. [SEC. IIL 

the word opinion ; since, as we before showed, it is the ancient 
expression signifying a medium between Knowledge and Igno- 
rance : and well did that acute Italian exclaim, Opinione, 
regina del mondo ! — for, as it is impossible that Ignorance, 
which cannot govern itself should govern anything else, so to 
expect that all the world should be wise enough to submit to 
the government of Wisdom, would be to show that we had 
followed very little Method in our study either of History, of 
living men, or even of ourselves. 

Applied When certain Ideas, or images representative of Ideas, are 

applied still more particularly, not to the investigation of the 
general and permanent properties of all bodies, but of certain 
changes in those properties, or of properties existing in bodies 
partially, then we popularly call the Studies relative to such 
matters by the name of Applied Sciences ; such are Magnetism, 
JElectricity, Gralvanism, Chemistry, the Laws of Light and 

Experi- Heat, &c. We have already so fully shown the uncertainty oi 

Philosophy, the first Principles in these Studies, and have so distinctly 
traced the cause of that uncertainty, in every case, to a want 
of clearness in the first Idea or Mental initiative of the Science, 
that it will be unnecessary here to do more than refer to our 
preceding observations. 

Fine Arts. We come now to another class of Applied Sciences, namely, 
those which are applied to the purposes of pleasure through 
the medium of the Imagination ; and which are commonly 
called the Fine Akts. These are Poetry, Painting, Music, 
Sculpture, Architecture. We have before said, that the Method 
to be observed in these, holds a sort of middle place between 
the Method of Law, or Pure Science, and the Method of 
Theory. In regard to the Mixed Sciences, and to the first 
class of Applied Sciences, the Mental initiative may have been 
received from without ; but it has escaped some Critics, that 
in the Fine Arts the Mental initiative must necessarily proceed 



SEC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 69 

from witliin. Hence wg find tliem giving, as it were, recipes 
to form a Poet, by placing liim in certain directions and posi- 
tions ; as if tliey thought that every deer-stealer might, if he 
pleased, become a Shakspeare, or that Shakspeare's mind was 
made up of the shreds and patches of the books of his day, 
wliich by good fortune he happened to read in such an order 
that they successively fitted into the scenes of Macbeth, Othello, 
The Tempest, As you like it, &c. Certainly the Fine Arts 
belong to the outward world, for they all operate by the images 
of sight and sound, and other sensible impressions ; and without 
a delicate tact for these, no man ever was, or could be, either 
a Musician or a Poet ; nor could he attain to excellence in any 
one of these Arts : but as certainly he must always be a poor 
and unsuccessful cultivator of the Arts if he is not impelled 
first by a mighty, inward power, a feeling, quod nequeo mon- 
strare, et sentio tantum ; nor can he make great advances in 
his Art, if, in the course of his progress, the obscure impulse 
does not gradually become a bright, and clear, and living 
Idea! 

Pursuits of utility, we daily find are capable of being reduced Useful 
to Method. Thus Political Economy, and Agriculture, and 
Commerce, and Manufactures, are now considered scientifically, 
or, as the more prevalent expression is. Philosophically. It 
may, perhaps, be difficult, at first, to persuade the experi- 
mental Agiiculturist that he also pursues, or ought to pursue, 
an Ideal Method ; nor do we mean by this that he must deal 
only in ideal sheep and oxen, and in the groves and meads of 
Fairy Land. But these Studies, soberly considered, will be 
found wholly dependent on the Sciences of which we have 
already stated. It is not, surely, in the Country of Arkwright, 
tliat the Philosophy of Commerce can be thought independent 
of Mechanics : and where Davy has delivered Lectures on 
Agriculture, it would be folly to say that the most Pliilosopliic 



70 



INTRODUCTION. 



Natural 
History. 



Appli- 
cations of 
Natural 
History. 



Histoiy and 
Biography. 



[SEC. III. 

views of Cliemistry were not conducive to tlie making our 
valleys laugh -witli corn. 

We have already spoken of LiNN^US, the illustrious Swede, 
to whom the three kingdoms, as they are aptly called, of 
Natural History are so deeply indebted ; and if, with all liis 
great talents, he yet failed in establishing the united empire of 
those three mighty monarchies on firm laws and a fixed con- 
stitution, we have shown, that it was only owing to a want 
of precision in the first Ideas of his theory. 

Natural History itself becomes a rule for dependent pur- 
suits, such as those of Medicine (under which are Pharmacy 
and the Materia Medico) and Surgery, in which is included 
Anatomy. That in these and the other theoretical studies so 
much still remains to be done, ought not to be a subject for 
regret, but, on the contrary, for a laudable and generous 
ambition. Yet that ambition should be regulated and mode- 
rated by a due consideration of the place which the particular 
pursuit in question holds in the great circle of the Sciences, 
and by observing the only proper Method which can be pur- 
sued for its improvement. If, in what we have here said, we 
have done anything towards the excitement, the regulation, 
and the assistance of that ambition; if we have faintly sketched 
an outhne of the great laws of Method, which bind together 
the various branches of Human Knowledge, we may not im- 
properly indulge a hope that the ensuing Work, in its progress, 
will be found conducive to the promotion of the best interests 
of Mankind. 

Our Plan would not completely meet the views of those to 
whom such Works as the following are eminently useful and 
agreeable, if, besides the Philosophic Method already described, 
we did not present some view of the actual History of Man- 
kind. We have therefore devoted a large portion of our 
labours to the History of the Human Pace, on a new, and, we 



SEC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 71 

trust it will be foimd, an improved System. Biograpliy and 
History tend to tlie same points of general instruction, in two 
ways : the one exhibiting Human Principles and Passions, 
acting upon a large scale ; tlie other showing them as they 
move in a smaller circle, but enabling us to trace the orbit 
which they describe with greater precision. The one brings 
Man into contact with Society, actuated by the interests which 
agitate and stimulate him in the various social combinations of 
his existence ; and Human Nature presents itself in the varied 
shapes impressed upon it by the different ranks wliich it occu- 
pies. The other brings before us the individual when he 
stands alone, his passions asleep, his native impulses under no 
external excitement ; in the undress of one who has retired 
from the stage, on which he felt he had a part to sustain ; and 
even the Monarch, forgetting the pomp and circumstance of 
his royalty, remembers here only that he is a Man. Assuredly 
the great use of History is to acquaint us with the Xature of 
Man. Tliis end is best answered by the most faithful portrait ; 
but Biography is a collection of portraits. At the same time 
there must be some mode of grouping and connecting the 
individuals, who are themselves the great landmarks in the 
Map of Hmnan Nature. It has therefore occurred to us, 
that the most effectual mode of attaining the chief objects of 
Historical knowledge will be occasionally to present History 
in the form of Biography, chronologically arranged. This 
will be preceded by a general Introduction on the Uses of 
History, and on the line which separates its early Facts from 
Fable ; and it will, in the course of its progress, be interspersed 
with connecting Chapters on the events of large and distin- 
guishing periods of time as well as on Political Geography and 
Chronology. Thus will a large portion of History be con- 
veyed, not only in its most interesting, but in its most philo- 
sopliical and real form ; while the remaining facts will be 



72 INTRODUCTION. [SEC. III. 

interwoven in tlie preliminary and connecting Chapters. If 
in tracing thus the " eventful History " of Man, and particu- 
larly of our own Country, we should perceive, as we must 
necessarily do in all that is human, evils and imperfections, 
these will not be without their uses, in leading us back to the 
importance of intellectual Method as their grand and sovereign 
remedy. Hence shall we learn its proper national application, 
namely, the education of the Mind, first in the Man and 
Citizen, and then, inclusively, in the State itself. 

Alphabetic Such are our views in the Philosophical and Historical * 
m nt^*^" branches of our Work. Of the Miscellaneous or Alphabetical 
Division we have little to add. But well aware that Works of 
tliis nature are not solely useful to those who have leisure and 
inclination to study Science in its comprehensiveness and unity, 
but are also valuable for daily reference on particular points, 
suggested by the desires or business of the individual, we 
could not hold ourselves dispensed from consulting the conve- 
nience of a numerous and most respectable class of Eeaders , 
while the preceding remarks will go to prove that, for many J 
local and supplementary illustrations of Science, no other 
depository could be furnished. ^ 

As the Philosophical arrangement is, however, most con- 
ducive to the purposes of intellectual research and information ; 
as it will most naturally interest men of Science and Literature ; I 
will present the circle of Knowledge in its harmony ; will give 
that unity of design and of elucidation, the want of which we J 
have most deeply felt in other Works of a similar kind, where I] 
the desired information is divided into innumerable fragments 
scattered over many volumes, like a mirror broken on the 
ground, presenting, instead of one, a thousand images, but 
none entire, — this Division must, of necessity, have that 
prominence in the prosecution of our design wliich our con- 

• 



SEC. ni.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 73 

viction of its importance to the due execution of the plan 
demands : and every other part of the arrangement must be 
considered as subordinate to this principal organization. With 
respect to the whole Work, it should be observed, that in what 
concerns references we are guided by principle, not by caprice ; 
nor do we ever recur to them as our only means of escape 
from an exigency. Throughout the Encyclopedia Metro- The Phi- 
POLITANA, the Philosophical arrangement predominates and arrange- 
regulates the Alphabetical arrangement; and the references, ™^^* , 
whether to it or from it, are auxiliary. We never refer regulates 

T • • • 1 p 1 y *^^ Alpha- 

from the first and second Divisions to the fourth, or from the betical. 
arst to the second, for the explanation of a term, the establish- 
ment of a Principle, or the demonstration of a Proposition. 
The reference, whenever it occurs, unless it be retrospective, is 
not for the purpose of essential information, but for that which 
is collateral and subordinate. The theory of the Balance, for 
example, is given where it ought to be in the Treatise on 
Mechanics ; but they who wish to acquaint themselves with the 
various constructions of Balances for the purposes of Commerce 
or Philosophy, knowing that these cannot be introduced into a 
Scientific Treatise without destroying the symmetry of its 
parts by a suspension of the Logical order, will naturally turn, 
whether there be a reference or not, to the Alphabetical 
Department of the Work. So again, the Principles of the 
Telescope are given in the Treatise on Optics ; the varieties of 
construction in the Alphabetical Department : the Principles 
cf the Thermometer, when treating of the effects of Heat ; its 
varieties of construction in the Alphabetical Department. 
Practical detail, and niceties or peculiarities of construction, 
can seldom be interwoven with propriety among the regular 
deductions of a Methodical Treatise : in all cases where they 
cannot, our general Principle, as it comprehends proportion, 
accuracy, utility, and convenience, demands a reference, whether 



74 



INTEODUCTION. 



Trade and 

Literature 
essential to 
the exist- 
ence of a 
Nation. 



Distin- 
guishing 
object of 
the Ency- 
clopaedia 
Metropo- 
litana. 



[sec. III. 

expressed or not, to tlie appropriate place for all that is sub- 
servient ; that is, to the fourth or Alphabetical Division. 

This final Division of our Work will bring the whole into 
unison with the two great impulses of Modern times, Trade 
and Literature These, after the dismemberment of the Eoman 
Empire, gradually reduced the conquerors and the conquered 
at once into several nations and a common Christendom. The 
natural Law of increase, and the instincts of Family, may pro- 
duce Tribes, and, under rare and peculiar circumstances. 
Settlements and Neighbourhoods; and Conquests may form 
Empires. But without Trade and Literature combined, there 
can be no Nation ; without Commerce and Science, no bond of 
Nations. As the one has for its object the wants of the body, 
real or artificial, the desires for wliich are for the greater part 
excited from without, so the other has for its origin, as well 
as for its object, the wants of the Mind, the gratification of 
which is a natural and necessary condition of its growth and 
sanity. In the pursuits of Commerce the Man is called into 
action from without, in order to appropriate the outward world, 
as far as he can bring it within his reach, to the purposes of m 
his corporeal nature. In his Scientific and Literary character " 
he is internally excited to various studies and pursuits, the 
groundwork of which is in himself 

This, again, will conduct us to the distinguishing object of 
the present undertaking, in endeavouring to explain which we 
have dwelt long upon General Principles ; but not too long, if 
we have established the necessity of what we conceive to be 
the main characteristic of every just arrangement of Knowledge. 

Our Method embraces the twofold distinction of Human 
activity to which we have adverted, — ^the two great directions 
of Man and Society, with their several objects and ends. 
Without advocating the exploded doctrine o^ perfectibility, we 
cannot but regard all that is Human in Human Nature, and all 



5EC. III.] APPLICATION OF THE SCIENCE OF METHOD. 75 

that in Nature is above herself, as together working forward 
that far deeper and more permanent revolution in the Moral 
World of which the recent changes in the Political World may- 
be regarded as the pioneering whirlwind and storm. But woe 
to that revolution which is not guided by the historic sense ; 
by the pure and unsopliisticated knowledge of the past : and 
to convey this Methodically, so as to aid the progress of the 
future, has been already announced as the distinguishing claim 
of the Encyclopedia Metropolitana. 



January, 1818. 



LONDON : 

FBINTSO BT \V. CLOWES AND SONS, STAllFOBI) STREET 
AND CHABING CEOSS. 



PLAN 



OF THE 



ENCYCLOPEDIA METROPOLITANA. 



SECOND EDITION 



PLAN OF THE ENCYCLOP/EDIA METROPOLITANA. 



The INTRODUCTION.— On the Laws and regulative Principles of EDUCATION ; 
or in the Language of the Schools, the Elements of METHODOLOGY. 



FIRST DIVISION. 



PURE SCIENCES. 



Section I. — Formal Sciences. 

Philosophy of Language. 
Logic. 
Rhetoric. 
Mathematics : — 

Geometry. 

Arithmetic. 

Algebra. 

Geometrical Analysis. 

Theory of Numbers. 

Trigonometry. 

Analytical Geometry. 

Conic Sections. 

Differential and Integral Calculus. 

Calculus of Variations. 

Calculus of Finite Differences. 

Calculus of Functions. 

Theory of Probabilities. 

Definite Integrals. 

Section II. — Real Scienceo. 
Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy. 



Law : — 

General Principles of Law. 
Roman Law. 
English Law — 

Laws of England. 

Laws of Ireland. 

Laws of Scotland. 

Colonial Law. 
Canon Law. 
Politics : — 

Law of Nations — 

Diplomacy. 
Political Philosophy — 

Statistics, 
Political Economy — 

Commerce. 
Theology : — 

Natural Theology. 
Evidences of Revelation. 
Scripture Doctrine. 

Biblical Literature. 

Biblical Antiquities. 

Religions and Religious Customs. 



SECOND DIVISION. 



MIXED AND APPLIED SCIENCES. 



Section I. 
Mechanical Philosophy-. 
(Mixed Mathematics.^ 
Mechanics. 
Hydrodynamics. 
Pneumatics. 
Optics. 

Astronomy : — 
Plane Astronomy. 
Nautical Astronomy. 
Physical Astronomy. 
Figure of the Earth. 
Tides and Waves. 



Section II. 
Experimental Philosophy. 



Magnetism. 

Electro-Magnetism. 

Electricity. 

Galvanism. 

Heat. 



Light. 
Chemistry. 
Sound. 
Meteorology. 



Section III. — The Fine Arts. 



Architecture. 
Sculpture. 
Painting. 
Heraldiy. 



Numismatics. 
Poetry. 
Music. 
Engraving. 



Section IV. — The Useful Arvs. 

Agriculture. 

Horticulture. 

Floriculture. 

Arboriculture. 

Carpentry and Joineiy. 

Fortification. 

Engineering. 

Naval Arcliitectui'e. 

Manufactures. 

Mechanical Arts. 

Cheniical Arts. 

Section V. — ^Natukal History. 

Inanimate : — Crystallography. 

Mineralogy. 

Geology. 
Insentient :— Botany. 
Animate : — Zoology. 

Physiology. 



Comparative Anatomy — 
Vertebrals : — Mammalia. 

Birds. 

Reptiles. 

Fishes. 



In vertebrals : — 
Molluscs. 
Insects. 
Crustaceans. 
Arachnidans. 
Myriapods. 



Spined Skins. 
Sia Nettles. 
Infusories. 
Polyps. 



Section VI. 
Applications of Natural HisTOKr* 



Anatomy. 
Materia Medica 
Medicine. 
Surgery. 
Veterinary Art. 



Phannacy. 



THIRD DIVISION. 



HISTORY, BIOGRAPHY, AND GEOGRAPHY. 



Introduction : — 

Dissertation on the Uses of History. 

Chronology. 

Chronological Tables. 

Ethnology. 

Ancient History : — 
Sacred History. 
Greece. 

Greek Literature. 
Greek Philosophy and Ail. 
Ancient Oriental Nations. 
Rome. 

Roman Literature. 
Roman Philosophy. 
Classical Antiquities. 
Heathen Mythology. 

Middle Ages. 

Modern History : — 
The Christian Church. 
Greek Empire. 



Ottoman Empire. 

The Crusades. 

Italy. 

Germany. 

France. 

Spain. 

Portugal. 

Netherlands. 

Switzerland. 

Britain. 

Northern Europe. 

America. 

India. 

Popular Antiquities 

Physical Geographi . 

Political Geography : 
European. 
American. 
Oriental. 
African. 
Classical. 
British Topography, 



FOURTH DIVISION. 



LEXICOGRAPHICAL. 



INDEX VOLUMR 






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